Spectrobes: Legends
by angelswings217
Summary: An ancient legend speaks of a war between darkness, and humans that commanded beings of light. I never thought it would be true... Spectrobes meets normal Earth teen. May be T later on.
1. Master Hill

**Hey there! Ever since the first Spectrobes game, the idea of Spectrobes meets normal high school teen has always been in the back of my head; here are the results. **

**Author's note: despite my **_**Twilight **_**references in this chapter, I am NOT a fan of the series—to slow-paced for me. **

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything Spectrobes.**

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 1

Mysterious Hilltop

I gazed out the bus window as the school bus traveled down the highway. It was odd how a mere millimeter changes beautiful forest-covered grassland into concrete roads, littler (illegally) tossed out of car windows, honking, and the overwhelming 'whoosh' of cars passing by non-stop. Oh, the things we have done to our planet.

But that was a problem to discuss on a _Help the Environment _forum on a social networking site. This wasn't my problem—even though it did make me feel like the Jar-headed monster of a marine and that corporate lunatic from _James Cameron's Avatar_. Every time I see so much as a tree being cut down I get this awful feeling in my gut and those two losers come to mind. It was the complete opposite of the feeling you get when you do something nice—it was like I was guilty for being a hum—"OW!"

A baseball slammed into the back of my head and landed next to me on the bus seat. I instantly turned around with the ball in my hand, poised to throw it at whoever hit me. Half the bus was snickering and (unsuccessfully) trying to play dumb.

Then an idea hit me.

Instead of playing into their loser game of _make-fun-of-the-only-kid-that-listens-to-the-teacher _I'd turn things around on them.

They waited for the ball to come flying back at them, so they could call me out to the teachers, but it never came back. It remained by my side as I drowned out the annoyed groans of the thwarted bullies with one of my favorite things to listen to; foreign music—most prominently, Japanese.

Due to cultural differences, in foreign countries, songs that don't have any deeper meaning are a lot rarer over there (no rhyme intended) then here in the States.

_Don't let me down. Don't leave me now  
tesaguri no in the dark  
_

Also, because of America's enormous cultural influence, and the fact that English is the most widely spoken language in existence, around the world, you can often find English integrated into music. It helps me understand the song's meaning more easily.

_Right on my way. Light out the stars  
miushinawanai you ni  
_

This song was called "HEAVEN." The meaning of the song can be figured out from the mood and the integrated English lyrics. The song starts off metal-like and dark, but it bursts into a more up-beat and powerful chorus singing about doing things like being in the dark until you find the one you're looking for, and "flying away into heaven"—hence the name of the song.

"Students! We're here!"

Here we go…

(…)

All the kids filed off the buses. It was windy, and that was a nice touch to the warmth. Ah; a perfect weekend for an overnight camping trip. I couldn't help but gawk at the huge hill that stuck out in our surroundings. I hadn't seen such a tall mass of greenery since I went to Hawaii as a kid with my family. It almost touched the cloud-line.

Above us was a sign that read _"Master Peak Camp: Welcome!" _In big, bold letters.

It took several minutes for the teachers to get all of the tenth and eleventh grades to shut up. Honestly; I can understand wanting to finish up your conversation, but why is it so hard to listen?

"Hello kids! I'm Jack!" A man with dark skin, a cowboy hat, and long hair walked came over waving his arms in the air. I didn't like how he addressed us as if we were in the sixth grade. He reminded me of the werewolf kid during the first twilight movie—only older, and a little buffer (keep in mind that I'm thinking of him in the fist movie, before he had become such a heart-throb). It was clear that he was excited to be among young kids…I found that creepy.

"My son, Keith, will show you to your cabins."

I heard a lot of girls chatter when they saw Keith. I didn't blame them. He was tall, dark, and had perfect hair—but I wasn't really looking for anyone right now. I preferred to stick to fictional characters that my parents wouldn't freak out about.

We followed him to some old-looking log cabins. I winced at the sight of them. My dad is an architect and my mom is an interior designer; I got a natural disposition towards ugly buildings from them.

"Girls in the cabin on the right, boys in the one on the left!" He yelled.

Thankfully, the inside of the cabins had been recently updated. The bunk beds weren't made out of those nasty woods covered in synthetic coating, but more modern materials and the mattresses weren't nearly as bad as I expected either. We all had to bring our own bedding; I unloaded the extra-fluffy stuff my sister stopped using after she graduated college. Once everything was set up, I placed the baseball—baseball?

Holy crap! I had kept it the entire time!

Well, I stuffed it and all the usual stuff (I-pod, phone, camera, keychain light, etcetera) into my knapsack. It was close to sundown when we got to the camp site, and we were going to road marshmallows over fire tonight; I, myself had been looking forward to that in particular since the field trip was announced months ago.

I changed out of my t-shirt/tang-top combination and into a tang-top and khaki pants. It was going to get a little colder, but not too much. On the way out, we had to pass the bathroom, and I caught a glimpse of myself from a mirror attacked to the door.

"Have you ever thought of dying your hair?"

I turned around and saw a girl with long, curly hair smiling at me. I recognized her as Lily; she was really popular and a member of the cheerleading squad. I didn't' dislike her in the slightest; in fact, I kind of liked her. She was one of the few popular kids that was pretty dang nice.

"What?" I asked.

"The entire, 'dark hair, dark eyes, and tan skin' thing is fine, but you could do so much better! I think you'd look awesome with red hair and—" she gasped. "Red eyes!"

I glared at her. "You don't seem like the one to be into that sort of look," I said.

"No—not, like, vampire red. More like a so-brown-in-the-right-light-it-could-be-red, red!"

"…Ooooookay. I'm gone."

(…)

I smashed a crispy marshmallow between two crackers and some chocolate, and ate it. The sweet goodness of the s'mors filled my mouth. I loved this taste.

The sun had completely set and everyone was gathered around a hue bonfire. We were all talking and roasting marshmallows together. It was really nice—it made you think that nothing could go wro—

"Alright kids, listen up!"

How come that whenever I'm about to make a deep and/or foreshadowing statement, I always get obnoxiously interrupted one way or another?

"While you're all listening, it's about time that I told you the old tale behind Master hill!"

"Why is it called 'Master Hill'?" Lily called out from right next to me. How convenient that my head was _right next to her mouth! _

"It might have been called something else." And now I noticed that Keith was on my other side. "The markings were scratched up; there was something written before 'master.' No one knows what."

Someone jokingly whispered the _Twilight Zone _theme.

"The tale goes like this: long ago, there was a war between humanity, and the darkness," Keith began.

"What is this? _The never ending story_?" I muttered.

"It seemed like the end for humanity; but then the earth gave humanity a great gift—something that would give them a fighting chance," Gale continued. "The Earth's winds, seas, flames, and plants gave birth to beings of light that would fight alongside a flaming-haired, hot-eyed warrior. The Master of the light—hence the name of the land you're stand—err—sitting on."

"it is said that the key to his power is hidden on the hill; and tonight, we're going to go and find it."

"Uncle!" Keith breathed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes; I'm sure."

The kids started to mutter amongst themselves. "They're probably setting us up to have a dude dressed up like the freak from _Psycho_ jump out at us," one kid muttered. Somehow…I felt that wasn't the cas—

"Now split up into groups and get moving!"

OH COME ON!


	2. Hidden Cavern

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 2

Hidden Cavern

Somehow I wound up with Keith, Lily, and Mr. Anderson (biology teacher/sub in nurse at times). Our group had to be the smallest in the entire field trip. We all grabbed flashlights, canteens, flares, and chose different paths up the mountain. It was clear that the camp owners had hidden something for us to find, so I really wanted to find it as fast as I could.

"Which one should we take, Keith?" I asked.

"Why are you asking me?" He replied.

"Well, it's just, I want to find whatever we're looking for first, that's all."

He shrugged. "I have no idea what my uncle's doing."

I don't exactly know why or how, but Mr. Anderson noticed that no one seemed to be taking a path that made its way through the forest, told us about it, Lily got excited, Keith said that he'd go with the majority, and I was only one versus two, so we wound up taking the road less traveled. -_-…

(Thirty minutes later…)

"Can…we…take a break?" I breathed. Did I forget to mention that I was all brains, and virtually _no _bron? We had been climbing up the roughest path on the entire dang hill, and everything underneath of my neck ached…

"Oh come on, pull through; I'm sure we're going to find what we're looking for!" Mr. Anderson encouraged.

"Yeah! Go for it, go!" Lily said doing a little cheer move.

"Have you ever walked a long distance in your life?" Keith asked.

"Not very often and even more rarely out of my own will," I told him.

We walked and walked. Mr. Anderson handed me a long stick that I could use to keep myself up; apparently it was a really common things for hikers to use in order to save energy and get better footing.

"Why didn't you think of this sooner?" I gasped.

"You look more athletic than you are," he told me.

I didn't need to be athletic like my sisters were. They had it all; brains, beauty, and bron. My parents always told me that in terms of brain, I was the most naturally talented. So in the end, I decided to focus on my mind more than my body so that I could surpass them in some way. The result was an honor-roll student with a spotless behavioral record and was already getting scouted out by colleges across the country.

But sometimes I didn't want to be the perfect smart kid. Sometimes I wanted to be the athletic kid with decent grades that had a lot of friends. Sometimes I wanted to be that stupid, yet brave and strong kid that I had read about in so many books that goes on an adventure beyond imagination. Sometimes I just wanted to be a her—"OOOOH!"

(…)

"Mari? Mari?" Someone called out. I can't believe it, but I haven't mentioned that my name is Mari (MAR-E, not "Marie," MAR-E) Jones.

"Yeah?" I groaned. "What happened?"

"You fell into a pit. Hold on; we're going to get help and get you out of there!" Mr. Anderson assured me.

"Are you hurt?" Keith asked.

I moved all of my still aching body parts. "No; I think I'm OK. I actually think I landed in something soft!" I was on top a pile of old vines and leaves. Before me was a long stone walkway that curved out of view suddenly.

"Guys! There's some kind of, like, secret passageway down here!" I yelled.

"WHAT??!!" Keith bellowed.

"There's some kind of secret cavern here!"

I heard both concerned and excited chattering from above. After about five minutes, and a few more assurances that I was uninjured, Lily dropped her video camera with night vision mode down.

"Take a ton of pictures while we go get the others!" She squealed.

And forward I went!

The corridor was extremely well-made. Aside from the thin layers of moss, it was perfect. I cannot imagine how much work it must have taken to create such a passageway without machinery…maybe it was made with machinery? No; I am not implying that aliens were involved. I'm implying that they made this as something to spice up the camping experience. But something told me other—"OOF!"

AGAIN? SERIOUSLY??!!

Alright, intermission! Angel's Wings! What's your problem?

**It's the joke gimmick that I'm doing for this story. Whenever you make a serious statement that might also be foreshowadowing, you will always get interrupted somehow. I've never been really good at comedy, so I wanted to try and put something like that in. **

OH! Yeah! Real funny!

**Oh relax; once I get to the Krawl invasion that'll hardly ever happen anymore.**

Um; I think you just gave away some spoilers.

**This is a Spectrobes fanfiction that isn't a comedy parody; I think people know that's coming sooner or later.**

Okay, just make it later. I don't want to have any blunders with the Spectrobes.

**No promises :3**

What?

**END INTERMISION! **

I tripped over some huge rock-thing. It was actually…more like a statue. I picked it up; it was surprisingly light. The statue was of some koala, thing; only it didn't have paws, had weird markings, it looked like it would walk on all fours, and it's ears were _way _too big.

"Aww…you're kinda—whoa!"

I looked up and saw the reason why the end of the passageway suddenly curved out of view. There was a _huge _spiral staircase thing winding up the passageway, leading to some unknown source of light.

Alright…cute koala statue can wait.

I tucked it under my arm and kept on walking. Along the edge of the spiral pathway, there were marking that reminded me of Egyptian hieroglyphs. There were images of horrifying blob monsters that looked like they came right out of _Men in Black, _but there were also images of humans fighting alongside cooler monsters that looked more like they came out of an awesome video game, or something (wink, wink; nudge, nudge).

As I went higher and higher, I noticed that there were many cracks in the ground. At first there was nothing out of the ordinary about them besides that they were clearly etched into floor on purpose, but later on, it seemed that pulses of light ran through them. One too many s'mors I guess…

And at the top…I saw something unbelievable…

There was an altar shaped like a hexagon, with a pedestal shaped like a hexagon, and placed on the hexagon was a silver hexagonal object (two of the sides were only longer than the others). On the roof was the source of the room's light. Along the creases in the object were ovular glowing areas that pulsated with light in unison to the lights coming from the floors.

Before I knew it, the koala statue seemed to get…warmer…weird.

On a sheer impulse I picked up the hexagonal thing. It looked like there were wrist straps on it, so I put it on. It was actually kinda cute if you asked me. Then the statue really got warm. I went over to the door, put it down there, and started taking pictures. Weather this was a joke thought up by the camp owners, or real, this would be a big hit on my facebook.

After I was done I leaned on the big door thing with the door that the arm that I put the 'gauntlet' as I had deemed it, on. There was no way that I was going to get it open after a—"AAAUGH!" I fell in.


	3. MONSTER BATTLE OF EPICNESS!

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 3

MONSTER BATTLE OF EPICNESS!

All around him, sickening tentacles and objects all melded together to make a cavern that pulsated with parasitic life. Outside the window, he saw something that he had spend eons searching for; a planet with life. It was mostly blue, and has blotched of green and brown, mostly hidden under large areas of white. It was so beautiful…it would make him happy to suck it dry.

"Master Krux." He turned around and saw his purple-skinned follower, Maja, kneeling before him. "We've detected a strange energy source; shall we send a search party?"

"Go ahead."

A small mass of black approached the blue world.

(…)

As if my body didn't ache enough already…

Something wet was touching my face… I opened my eyes, and—

"HOLY CRAP!"

There was some red Koala thing with some blue on it's face licking my face! I leapt up and crawled backwards. It craned it's head to the side, then slowly came towards me, while making a sound that was a combination of a car's purr and a dog's whine. It came up to me and sat in front of me.

I noticed that there was some dust on its head, so I brushed it off gently. He was soft, and he looked just like the Koala statue…could it be? Nah; there's no way.

I stood up and looked around. I was on this flat area of grass that overlooked the entire forest. I could see the cabins, the highway, and even Central City (my home town) in the distance. It was on top of Master Hill. Jack had said this place was off-limits. I guessed that I should find a way back down soon.

I was about to start walking when the koala/dog thing grabbed my pants leg with its drool. When I stopped, he let go, and started to whine.

"What's the matter, boy? Is something wrong?" I asked.

In response, he started to growl and got into a position like he was going to pounce. The only problem was that he was staring up at the sky. I looked up, too. It was beautiful and filled with stars—some of them were even different colors! Most were white, a few were blue, one or two were red, and one really big one was…dark purple. And it was getting bigger…

"HIT THE DIRT!" I yelled.

Somehow the koala/dog understood what I said and leapt down with me just as the purple whatever-it-was impact—err—stopped five feet above the ground?

It stopped…floating…right above the ground…right in front of my face…defying who knows how many laws of physics.

The koala/dog suddenly started growling even more than it had before. Out of the vortex…came…something without feet…or a face…or real hands. It was a big humanoid, purple…thing…whose torso went down to where its feet should be…and it slid around on that. It raised its stringy arms. At the ends were these weird, ball-like things, only they were elongated and stretched out.

It raised them and hissed…I don't think that's a good sign…

"Hey now, can't we just be cool about this? You know, talk it out?"

It came even closer. I started to back away, but the edge of the hill got closer and closer. The monster swung one of its huge arms down above me. I felt a wave of tingling from the gauntlet.

The next thing I knew, I was flying through the air. I heard the crash of the monster's arm slamming into the ground where I once was. There was a large crater where it's fist—ball—thing, had landed, and many cracked protruded from the hole.

A growling came from right next to my head…

I turned my head…and saw another monster. But…I liked this one.

This one was big, blue, had a weird mane thing, and a mace for a tail that matched the rest of its body's color scheme. Any one else would have run screaming at the top of their lungs, but I got a weird vibe from him…in a good way.

A straight-up roar came from my other side. I looked over and saw an animal that looked like a cross between a tiger and a lightning bolt. They stood next to me, ready to pounce. They were so cool-looking; it was awesome!

Suddenly, another black vortex appeared, and Mr. Ball-headed-monster had a twin brother…or sister…it was hard to tell. They leapt forward, and I instinctively leapt back. The creatures that stood by my sides leapt back with me.

In response, the two ball-headed monsters leapt forward and began their assault. As I ran back for cover, the creatures scattered. They did what I did.

"Oh come on!" I yelled. "Can't you guys attack, or something? Attack!" I yelled.

I felt the gauntlet tingle again, and they leapt forward. The blue one used his mace-tail and slammed it into one monster's head. The tiger-bolt thing rolled into a ring and rushed into the other monster, knocking it back several yards.

Wow! So this is what Lily feels like when she hollers at the top of her longs "GO TEAM GO!"

"GO, CREATURES, GO!" I yelled, flailing my arms in the air.

They ramped up their attack. The blue creature punched his foe repeatedly, finishing every series of punches with another slam in the face with his tail. The tiger slashed, slashed, and finished his series of slashes with a ring-ram as I had deemed it.

"FINISH IT!" I yelled.

One last slam in the face, one last ring-ram, and they monsters melted into dust. Suddenly…something amazing happened, _again_! They shrunk into orbs and flew back into my gauntlet. The force was so awesome that I fell back.

"Cute, and convenient; I like this gauntlet-thing!"

"Not a gauntlet."

I leapt up and held up my fists, ready for another fight. All I got was a red-haired dude in a cloak.

"H-hey! Man; did you see that just now? Oh, man, please tell me you got that on tape! That was amazing!" He walked up to me, and rubbed the top of my head.

"Um…I'm not a dog."

"I'm sorry," he said with a smile. "You're just so…innocent." He seemed sad.

"Yeah…never judge a book by its cover, dude." I told him.

"Yes…but for now, I'm going to give you something special."

I went on guard. "I've seen the stranger vids, dude!"

He craned his head, apparently confused. But then he took off his cloak and put in my—"Hey! My knapsack! When did you get that?" I asked.

"You dropped it in the battle with those Krawl," he said. I craned my head. Now _I _was confused. "Those were Krawl; monsters of darkness. The creatures that fought alongside you were Spectrobes; beings of light. As the wielder of the prismod, you have become their master—a duty I once held." He seemed both happy and sad now.

"What?" I asked.

"A great time of hardship await the people of this planet; it is now your duty to pull the through it." His eyes began to glow. "By the sacred power of this blue and pure world, I bestow upon you the title of this planet's Spectrobe Master!"

He raised an enormous, glowing, blue sword. He thrust it down and I shut my eyes. I noticed that he had stopped it right above my head. The land around us began to glow.

(…)

He passed his light from himself, and into her. Her brown eyes became a hot-red; her hair became a flaming red and wild. She winced as the light within her began to change her body from the inside out.

She began to scream.

Her muscles were rapidly tearing through themselves. Poor thing; her body must feel like it was on fire…but that was the cost. She needed to become stronger.

When it was done, she stared at him with heavy eyes. "W…what…?"

"I'm sorry; this is only the beginning of the pain that you may have to endure, but it also the beginning of the joy."

He knocked her out by thrusting his palm into her gut.


	4. WHAT THE HECK!

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 4

WHAT THE HECK!

He ran up the slope as fast as he could. They had combed the entire hill for Mari when she wasn't in the cavern; it meant that she could only be in one place; the hill's tip. If the doorway had opened then…no…she was a simple student from the field trip his idiot uncle had allowed. Now, because of him, all this insanity was ensuing!

Then he saw it; strange light.

"No, no, no, no, no!"

He made it to the tip of the hill, and was met with a site that both mesmerized and terrified him.

There was Mari, standing before a man with flaming hair and passionate flaming eyes. The man wore strange armor, and raised a blade above Mari's head. She put her arms up, clearly thinking he was going to attack her. What he was about to do may be even worse for her.

"By the sacred power of this blue and pure world, I bestow upon you the title of this planet's Spectrobe Master!"

"NOOOOO!"

But it was too late; her eyes became hot, her hair became a blazing red, a pillar of light rose into the sky around them. The pillar vanished as he thrust his palm into Mari's gut, sealing the deal. Mar was now a master of the beings of light…and that could only mean that all of the Earth was in grave danger.

He ran up to the unconscious Mari and took her in his arms. "Could I…take the burden from her?" He asked. The specter shook his head as he began to melt away.

"I am sorry; she is pure of heart and she reached the altar, first; her fate has been sealed."

Mari was now fated to defend the Earth from whatever it was that was threatening it. She has just now gone through only the beginning of the excruciating pain she must suffer as her duty. "I…wish to become her squire!" He said. He would fight alongside her, and ease her burden in any way possible. But the specter shook his head once again.

.

"If you wish to remain by her side, then that is your decision," The specter was almost gone. "Fight well; the fate of the world rests on her shoulders, and you as her friend must shoulder the burden with her."

"I will do it with honor."

He vanished and Mari's hair returned to it's original color.

(…)

_Is she alright?_

_She's a little scratched up. _

_What do you think happened?_

_Hey! She's waking up!_

My eyes fluttered open. "Huh…who…MONSTER FIGHT!" I bellowed as I bolted up, but I soon regretted it. My body screamed as I did; so much so that I yelled in pain. "OW! Ooooh; why am I so sore?" I whaled. I looked around and noticed that I was on the top bunk of the bed that I chose. Half of the field trip was all gathered around me.

"Keith found you out cold on top of the hill; we had to carry you back here." Lily told me. The entire experience came back to me in an amazing flashback.

"MONSTERS!" I bellowed. "And some of them fought alongside me! They fought each other! The bad ones turned into dust! And the good ones flew into this gaunt—err—Prismod!"

The kids glared at me like I was on acid. "Could you start from the beginning?" Mr. Anderson asked.

So I told them the entire story. The kids were interested when I mentioned the hidden cavern, but when I mentioned the altar they didn't believe it ad started to mutter things that I didn't like. When I showed them the Prismod hey shut up. Everyone knew that I owned nothing like that. But nobody bought the part about the monsters.

"Did you check her head right?" One kid asked. Mr. Anderson sent him out immediately.

"But he does raise a good point," Keith said. I glared at him. "There was a small bump on her head. Maybe it was just an injury-induced dream?" He suggested.

"But…it was so real…and the Prismod…"

"The entire point of the hike was to find that so we could go into another part of the legend," Jack told me. "You see, that is a replica of the weapon the Master of Light was said to have used in battle. Since you found it, you get to keep it. Oh and I also wanted to tell you something interesting," he began. "Keith will be accompanying you kids back to Central City."

The brought up some excited chatter—mostly amongst the girls though.

"Sir that may go against school policy" Mr. Anderson began.

"I already spoke o your school principal; mid you that we offered your school a special discount on this trip. We've arranged for family to pick him up and he will be attending Central City High School soon." Jack turned to me. "As to how sore you are, I have an old family remedy that I can give you."

It turned out to be some awful-tasting herbal crap, but it did the job. In about an hour, I felt like new. If that guy sold the recipe he could make a fortune! Of course, Jack just didn't seem like the kind of guy that would be into that sort of thing.

I convinced Mr. Anderson not to call my parents, and the kids finally dropped it, so things went on normally on the field trip. We went back to studying Aboriginal traditions and doing regular camping stuff.

First up was archery. I was picking out a good bow when I got the weirdest feeling that someone was watching me. It was Keith. When I looked over at him I caught a glimpse of his eyes; they seemed kind of sad. As soon as he noticed I was looking at him he turned away and acted like he hadn't even known that we were at the same activity.

I tried to brush the incident off and shoot some targets. Lily was on my left and Keith was on my right. Lily barely hit the target; Keith hit the ring just outside of the center. I honestly wouldn't have even been surprised if I flat-out missed the target.

I pulled the arrow back like I had seen Netyri do in _Avatar _and tried to line my bow and the target up, then finally let go. I hit it…dead center. A lot of the kids looked over and clapped. Geez; I didn't know I had it in me!

But next up on my schedule wasn't so much fun; relay race…against the track team…. Half of the track team had decided to team up and dominate. Although to be fair the teachers made the other track team members that were in this group be on our team. So that made me, Keith (getting a liiiiiitle creeped out here), and three members of the track team. Overall we had some pretty good chances—besides me that is. If you remember my tread up the hill, you know that I'm not all that much of an athlete.

We had agreed for me to go last, so if we got a good head start, we weren't screwed. Normal people would have taken that offensively, I know I suck, so I was fine with it.

At the end of the track were flags and meal tickets that would get us extra sweets when lunch came around. Oh, I really wanted to win! I am such a sweet tooth! It wasn't a normal jogging track; we were at a Native American theme campsite, so it was jut a long area of flattened out grass with chalk dust.

The first pair of Track Team members bolted forward running like they were at the Summer Olympics. The next pair got their batons at the same time. Our team got a bit of a head start in the next race. Then it was Keith versus the vice-captain of the team. They caught up.

My heart was pounding when Keith got to me. My opponent was that official captain and true star of the track team. I turned around, reached my hand out behind me, and waited for the stick to enter my hand. When it did, I let instincts take over, and I bolted forward running as fast as I could…no…I wasn't going as fast as I could…but I was running faster than I ever had before!

The captain's face was red and he was breathing heavily, but I felt like I was walking on air! I was barely even breaking a sweat! It was amazing! I felt like freaking _Sonic the Hedgehog_! Don't even get me started on the look on his face when I actually started to exert myself! He stood there gawking as I crossed the finish line and took the meal passes.

(…)

"You beat the captain of the track team?" Lily gasped. "Whoa!"

"I know!" I squealed.

I had gotten my extra treats at dinner, and was in my pajamas on my bunk at the girls' cabin. Lily's bunk was right under mine, so we leaned over and spoke to each other like siblings.

"Isn't he supposed to be one of the fastest people on this side of the country?"

"And now I'm one, too!" I breathed. "I've been faster, smarter, and stranger ever since I cam down from the h…"

The man with red hair flashed in my mind; I saw his eyes, filled with sorrow.

"Um…M-M-M-M-Mari!" Lily stammered.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Y-y-y-your b-b-b-bag!" 

"It's on the ground next to you, right?" I leaned completely over, so that I was looking at Lily upside down. She was leaning over the other side of the bed, shaking. I got up, and looked over there. My bag was shaking. "Oh come on! It's probably just my phone; it's set on vibrate."

I leapt down and picked up my bag. It was a little heavier than I remembered. I opened it up, and nearly threw it across the room. I wound up falling off the bead in surprise. Out from the bag, popped a little red koala/dog hybrid with blue lips and markings.

He leapt down in front of me, and wagged his tiny stub of a tail. We both gawked.

"Didn't you describe something just like that in your dream?" Lily asked.

"WHAT THE HECK??!!"


	5. Worstcased scenario?

**Hey, I want to thank you for all the reviews that you've been giving me!**

**DISCLAIMER: (yeah; I forgot to put this in a lot lately) I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 5

Worst-cased scenario?

Krux stared at the planet, just as he had every day since they arrived at it. There were many small object orbiting the planet; satellites for many different purposes, no doubt. Their ship had taken numerous paths in order to avoid the few that were clearly designed for space observation. These people might be able to fight; they weren't taking any chances.

"Master Krux."

It was Maja again, kneeling with one fist on the floor before him. He could tell by the way that she would not look up at him when he acknowledged her that there wasn't going to be any good news.

"The scouts, sir…they…never came back."

"So they never came back," he said bluntly. So be it; pawns were pawns.

"We detected…strange energies…strange…" she began.

"Strange, and?" He asked.

"Familiar." She finished.

"Familiar, how?"

"Similar to that of…Spectrobes…and their master."

Although it was well hidden behind his folded arms and mask, Maja could tell that Krux was angry—distressed even. There was no doubt that this new development angered him. The beings of light that had plagued them since the dawn of their existence had awakened to their presence on this planet as well, and as always, a pure-hearted resident of the planet had risen to command them in the fight to protect their home.

"Track the energy down' Maja, take some Krawl and deal with this novice master. We must not let him become any stronger than he already has."

(…)

"Hey, Lily?" I asked.

"Yeah?' she responded.

"Do you ever get the feeling that someone's talking about you…and getting something wrong?"

"No; why?"

"Never mind."

That had to be weirdest gut feeling I had ever had in my life.

So anyways, we had gotten used to the presence of the koala/dog thing and were trying to figure out what in the heck it was.

Lily gasped. "Why don't we take it over to Jack? He's supposed to know about all the local wildlife!" She exclaimed.

That didn't sound like a half bad idea; there was just a small problem. When we found the koala/dog, we ran into the closet, hit the light switch, and started thinking about what we should do without sending the entire girls' cabin into a screaming panic.

"How do we sneak him out?" I asked.

"The same way he snuck in; in your bag!" She told me. Well; I did have a lot of spare space when he climbed in. the only problem was…

"How do we get him in there?" I said pointing at the bag with my Prismod-covered arm. In response, as if knowing what the dilemma was, he climbed in.

"Well that was easy." Lily said. I shrugged and gently picked up the bag. We managed to sneak past the counselors and not draw any attention, despite being two teenaged girls in our pajamas walking around after dark.

The owner's cabin wasn't all that different from the normal ones, only the inside had the layout of a normal single-family home. In the living room, we saw Jack speaking to Keith about something that seemed clearly urgent. They noticed us enter and stood up.

"Well what brings you two here?" he asked.

Wow. I was half-expecting _'Get back to your cabin before I tell your teachers to have you suspended!' _Jack was really cool!

"Um…you know about all the local animals, right?" I asked. He nodded. "Do you know what this is?" I said putting the bag down. Koala/dog walked out and sat down as if this was normal for him—her—it—WHATEVER IT WAS! Keith had jumped and stared in awe. Jack retained his composure.

"Komaniu," he said.

"Coma-what-now?" Lily asked.

"Komaniu; a very rare and special little creature." He said. 'Komaniu' walked over to Jack, and he pet the strange creature. Komaniu let out a happy _"nyaraoo"_ sound. Weird. "But it seems that you've gotten the human scent on him," he said. "So…" he began.

"We take him to a nature reserve?" Lily guessed.

"You have to take care of him!"

Even Keith's jaw dropped.

"B-but…you said he was rare—"

"Because it's your scent that's on him, he will only accept food and affection from you; it's the only way t keep him healthy and alive!"

"The buss r—"

"Sneak him the same way you snuck him in here, goodbye!"

We found ourselves glaring at a closed front door.

"I guess I get to bus the news to mom that we've got a new family pet," I muttered. Did I ever mention that I've spent _years _trying to convince my mom to get me a dog? She's never given in.

(…)

"A rare species that will only accept her care now that her scent is on it??" Keith bellowed. "Where in the world did you come up with that pile of **[cow poop—strictly speaking]**?"

"I'd like it if you watched your language young man," Jack said coolly.

"Watch my language? An ancient legend involving the fate of this world and everything living on it is about to go into motion, and you're telling me to watch my language??"

"What else can I do Keith?" Jack began as he sat back down and rubbed his forehead. "Do right up to her face, activate the Prismod, and say 'Hey, the fate of the world is in your hands; good luck!' I don't think that would work with a child that has lived a life thinking that she'd get an education, go to a good college, and make a nice living in America's upper-middle class!"

"There has to be something that we can do!" Keith said, exasperated.

"There is; you've already done it. You've become her squire, and you'll be able to get close to her at Central City High School. For now, all you can do is make sure that nothing happens to her before she learns who it is she has to fight and how she has to do it." Keith told him.

"But what if she has to fight an impossible enemy? What if she has to single-handedly demolish a corporation? Or a terrorist group? An entire nation? Or the worst-cased scenario…?"

"It won't be that; I can assure you."

"I wish that little voice in the back of my head known as 'worry' would agree."


	6. It Was Not A Dream

**Hey! I'm sorry this chapter took so long in comparison to the others! I had an HSA recently and my mom has been drilling me with studying so I can get my first set of straight A's. Not to mention my work on the sister site (fictionpress) for original stories got a lot of attention, so I had to focus on that. I'll try and update faster!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 6

_I was running through a field of tall grass; a lone hilt in my hand. It resonated with a weak blue light—but the light was prominent in the night's darkness. Beside me ran a great lion-like being. He was red, with large fangs, and blue cloud-like markings on his face and body. Some would find him monstrous; to me, he was my friend. _

"_Let's go buddy."_

_I gripped the hilt and a great glowing, blue blade appeared from it—it would be an ax if the blade were shorter. But I knew that I would need a lot of firepower if I was going to survive the upcoming battle. I felt the fire within._

"_Zaza sword!"_

_It took on the form of great flames. _

(…)

"Bah…huh…wha…GIANT LIONS AND FLAMING SWORDS!"

I shot up in bed and found half of the buss gawking at me. That's right; we were on our way back to Central City today.

"Is there something wrong Mari?" Lily asked.

"Nah; I had a weird dream," I muttered.

"Really? What happened?" Lily asked.

"Well…I…in the dream I was…the guy that I saw before Keith found me out cold on top of Master Hill…" I told her.

"Better lay of the S'mors before bed!" She joked.

"Oh shut up!" I breathed.

Last night, after we basically got kicked out of Jack's house, we went back to our cabin and went to bed. The next morning we were to immediately begin packing our things and get ready to go back home. We had put off hiding Komaniu for as long as possible. When the time finally came to leave, I simply imagined Komaniu voluntarily climbing into my bag; he did exactly that.

Right now he was on my lap and I had to place a lot of the stuff that I prefer to be easily accessible were in my suit case because I wanted the little guy to be as comfortable as possible. He hardly shifted inside of the bag; my guess was that he was sleeping, or something. As long as he didn't start up a ruckus, it was fine with me.

"So Mari; have you heard about the latest fad?" Lily asked.

"No" I responded.

Lily took my hand and slipped a finger with a stone that was shaped like a flame on it. I gawked for a moment and looked back up at her. She was wearing an identical ring.

"They're called bond rings; they're totally adorable, and you're supposed to give them to your friends." She said excitedly.

I gawked at the ring some more; it did look kind of cool. "…Thanks."

(…)

It was the evening when we got home, so my parents were already there to pick me up. They dropped my stuff in the trunk, but I insisted on carrying my knapsack by hand for reasons that only you, I, and Lily know—and I think Gale too.

Our house was at the edge of Central City and placed deep in this area of forest that most people thought was _very _out of place, but perfect for my family. Before we moved to Central City was back when, we were a small town family. My parents' business hit it off over here, but they didn't want the endless rush of the city. The area of forest was up for grabs, and it was within a decent biking distance of the city, so it worked out for all of us.

The house itself was a large, three story modern home with a game room, pool, gate, guest rooms, and a movie room. Don't get me wrong; we started off small. When I was a little kid we had to pull through in a small town house in a ghetto. My parents kept up at getting their architecture licenses, and here we are! Just goes to show you; take school seriously!

I went up to my room and let Komaniu out of the bag. He walked out and took a seat next to my canopy bed. I sighed. I didn't even know what this thing freaking ate! How was I supposed to take care of an endangered anime that would only accept help from me? Ugh; I went out onto my balcony and tried to get some fresh air. Even with movies and a bathroom that flushes, two hours crammed into a bud with about twenty other kids isn't all that enjoyable of an experience.

The fresh air felt nice; it was barely even deterred by the fact that I stepped on a rock and hurt my foot.

"OW!" I bellowed. I kicked the stupid thing into my room was I went back in and got into my pajamas (basically a really long T-shirt with a thin hood). When I came out I saw something very unexpected.

Komaniu picked the rock up with his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

I just stood there wondering weather I should give the little guy the Heimlich maneuver. He showed no signs of being sick or ill, and he managed to crush the thing in his mouth until the pieces were small enough to swallow—like the rocks were its food. Wow. I just hope that it's even smaller when it comes out the other end.

(…)

_Battered and bloodied, I gawked at the corpses of the Krawl everywhere. Their bodies melted away into dust, leaving no traces of their former presence besides flattened areas of grass. Good. Who knows what insanity could occur if scavengers pecked at the bodies, or a child decided to touch them. _

_I dropped onto my back and withdrew my sword into the Prismod. My great lion friend took a seat beside me, panting. He was clearly tired too. We could both use a good rest. _

_To my dismay, he suddenly rose and began to growl. _

_A man stepped through the brush—wait—he was no man! He had a mask covered in slits that pulsated with orange light, he had flowing orange hair, and the bottom of his cloak released black shadow. _

"_Greetings young Spectrobe Master; this is our first and last meeting." He charged at me. _

(…)

What the heck.

I rose out of bed and made sure that my extra-long pajama shirt hadn't risen up in my sleep to reveal my panties. My body was really sore—the kind of sore you only get by holding really still. When I dream, I hold still, no matter how insane the dream, and said dream had woken me up.

I mean, who wouldn't wake up when they dreamt of a guy in a mask and a cloak charging at them? Someone a lot harder to startle than me, that's for sure!

I got up, used the bathroom, and got back into bed, making sure to step around Komaniu (_still _getting used to that name!).

I got back into bed, got under the covers, and shut my eyes. There was nothing like the wonderful feeling of being cozy under the covers when it wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold. You felt like you didn't want to—

Komaniu was growling.

With a groan, I got up to check out what was going on.

Komaniu's back was arched and he was growling at the balcony. Maybe there was a bird on there and he didn't like it, or something. I tried to go back to sleep; for me total silence freaked me out, so a little noise (as long as I knew the source) helped send me to dreamland. The little mutt started pulling the covers off of me, and wouldn't give up, no matter how much I pulled them back on.

It was a really good thing that it wasn't a school night.

"What the heck is it?" I groaned.

Komaniu went back to growl at the balcony and I sighed. Thank goodness our alarm system didn't react to the balconies.

I stepped outside and scoped out the entire yard. There wasn't even a squirrel scurrying through the grass.

"See! Nothing here!" I said kneeling in front of him. "Now let me go back to—hey!" Not Komaniu was gnawing at the Prismod! "Stop it! You'll get drool all over it! Stop!"

I yanked my arm away. "You're in for one _serious _timeout in the cl—" it was glowing "—oset…" I squealed.

Without warning, the Prismod got a mind of its own! It started to pull my arm to the edge of the balcony! I pulled back as hard as I could, but if felt like the thing was going to rip my arm right out of its socket. My muscles gave up on their own and I flew over the edge.

It's difficult to explain what happened in those next few seconds.

When the brain realizes that it's in danger, several defense mechanisms activate. The first one is adrenaline; a performance enhancer the body produces naturally, and releases into the bloodstream when in a stressful situation. The other being how quickly the brain processes things. Think of the brain as a video camera; when under extreme stress, the brain reads far more frames per second than normal, creating the illusion of time slowing.

Time slowed to a crawl, and at that moment, I saw two blue lights fly out of the Prismod. One flew to the ground, the other right under me. A moment before I went splat, the Lightning tiger from Master Hill saved me from death, his mace-tailed friend only a few feet away. Something told me that this time, and last time, I wasn't dreaming.


	7. I saved a celebrity!

**IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm altering the design of the Bond Ring into a bracelet with an azure stone in it that resembles a hybrid of opal and sapphire. **

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 7

"I saved a celebrity?"

I honestly had no idea what to do. I just sat on top of mister Lightning Tiger, frozen. I mean, come on! What _should_ I even do? Wake up my parents? My mom would have a heart attack! Call the police? Um, yeah, 'Help! There are two monsters running around in my back yard with a mutant koala!'That'll definitely work! For crying out loud, the only thing I was sure of was that I had an anklet on that has my high school's name sewed into it!

So Lightning Tiger decided for me. He bolted forward despite my cries for him to stop. When he wouldn't listen I simply held on for dear life as he, and Mace Tail with Komaniu on his back followed. Our group darted through the lines of trees until we were at the edge of the city. It wasn't a weeknight so the city was alive with activity despite the time.

Oh no! They'll be too conspicuous! One person with a camera-phone in the right place, and my monster buddies and I are all over the evening news!

"NO! AVOID THE CROWDS!" I bellowed.

I felt a small tingling sensation from the Prismod, and out of the blue, they all leapt into the sky! They started bounding from rooftop to rooftop, totally unnoticed! It was amazing! With the lights and the crowds flying under me it felt more like a roller coaster than a giant creature!

Ah…I doubted that there was anything in the world (short of an atomic bomb) that could ruin a moment as perfect as this one…but I was wrong.

There _was_ something that could ruin this moment; a car chase on a residential street. But not between any normal cars; between another shadowy vortex and a limousine. My heart leapt and I gasped at the sight. When I saw what was going on, I automatically wanted the creatures to stop so that I could get a better look. Apparently sensing this, they did just that.

Now like I said, the street was residential so there wasn't anyone playing witness to it (besides me and my half-flying creatures.) A limo was being chased down by a small vortex. As the limo was about to head into a more populated area, another vortex slammed into its front, sending it spinning into a stop sign.

My jaw dropped and I stared in awe.

Several of those creatures with huge heads, tiny hands, and no legs appeared, this time accompanied by a humanoid figure made of shadow, that was surrounded by crimson blobs of…something.

I wave of tingling came from the Prismod. I felt pins and needles all over my body. Before I knew it, there was a lock of my hair before my eyes, and it was flaming red. I had a lone hilt in my hand. To top it all off, the man's cloak was now my own.

(…)

His head hurt. He felt something warm and sticky on his forehead. He smelled smoke.

Damn.

What had happened?

He was on his way to his hotel, and the drive was as normal as ever, when he saw something behind the car. He figured it was another paparazzi van, but looking closer, he had seen it wasn't even a car. The driver put the pedal to the metal to get away, but another huge vortex had shown up.

So now what was happening?

He crawled out of the wreckage of the van, but couldn't move right. He suddenly panicked and started squirming frantically. He could still move his legs; he was just stuck between an opening in what was left of his limo. Someone would have had to have noticed the crash! There would be help here soon, and the accident would help give his first concert some publicity. Everybody wins!

He heard something that sounded like growling.

He heard no footsteps as they came near him, because they either had no feet, or floated. Three monsters came up to him. None of them had faces, but they were fearsome nonetheless. He sat there, unsure of what to do. Was he hallucinating? This had to be a dream!

But he could really feel a piece of metal pressing into his side… so this wasn't a dream.

"Help…" he squealed.

One of the ones with no feet raised the little ball that acted as its hand above his head.

"HELP!"

Another huge monster—much less menacing—bit into that monsters side.

(…)

My huge tiger took the first move and bit into the side of one of the monsters with no feet. Mace-tail followed, slamming his weapon into the side of the first monster's twin. They pulled them away from the wreckage, revealing a stunned victim. It was clear that he was trying to claw his way out, but wound up getting stuck in the process.

I came over and knelt down to help him when his eyes became even wider than they were before.

"Behind you!" He cried.

I did a 180 and came to an unsettling sight. Komaniu growled beside me. That new monster was standing there, faceless like his friends, but much more imposing…and floating as well. I gripped the hilt tightly as the monster made a sound that resembled a hybrid of gurgling and growling.

A tiny piece of the red blobs broke free from the rest of the group and flew out at me. I could barely see it coming, but I felt it graze the side of my head. Several locks of flaming red hair fell to the ground. Crap.

I ducked away from the wreckage, knowing that it would have been a bad idea to duke it out with a monster right next to an injured bystander. The creature gingerly floated over, the red blobs beginning to move faster.

Crap! Just what the heck was I supposed to do? Komaniu would probably be even more useless than me against this thing, and my creature friends were _way_ too preoccupied with the other two monsters. All I had was a hilt with no blade! How was a teenaged girl supposed to take on a near-giant monster with that?

I kept on thinking about different strategies, approaching this like a game boss; I kept on dodging and dodging, looking for a weakness or a pattern. The monster used the red blobs like projectiles, and when they hit, they hit hard. I could already feel a few welts rising up where it had hit me. I was so frustrated that as I dodged, I began to take my anger out on the hilt by squeezing so hard that it made my hand numb. Something unexpected happened after that.

One of the hugest swords I had ever seen rose out of the hilt. Now don't get me wrong; this wasn't a light saber that went "VISH, VISH" every time you waved it around. This had an actual blade that was like a katana—slightly curved—only _really _wide. No, seriously, Cloud Strife wouldn't beat an eye at this sword! And it was glowing blue. But why the heck couldn't it have shown up soon—

(gurgle/growl)

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!

As another red blob flew out at me, I slashed it. The monster did the same thing again, and so did I. It went on over and over, until it finally ran out. The monster stopped attacking and started to generate more of the blobs, but this was my opening! Without hesitation, I bolted forward and halved the thing before it could do something cheap like regenerate.

With one huge "SSSHHHHH" the monster was in two. I watched as it dissolved into shadow. Behind me, my creatures had finished disposing of their opponents as well. But I still got the feeling like I was forgetting…

OH CRAP!

I looked over at the kid, wide-eyed and still jammed in the wreckage of the car. I was so intent on rescuing him that I didn't realize that he'd probably ask me my name or something! I can't give it to him! And what if he asks for an explanation for the huge creatures or the sword that was nearly as tall as me that I could somehow lift by some miracle? I didn't even have an answer for that!

Either way… I had to get him out of that mess of scrap metal.

Trying to avoid his gaze, I used the sword to cut away the metal around him as gently as possible. I couldn't tell whether he was still gawking or not, but he was definitely speechless as I went to help out his driver. He was alright—only out cold. I stood up, and that's when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

It was the kid. He was staring at me, lips quivering, eyes filled with amazement. Despite all the scratches, he was pretty handsome. I quickly looked away before he had a chance to look at my face.

"Who…who are you?" He asked.

I wasn't sure how to answer. Obviously, I wasn't going to tell him the truth. The way that this kid was gawking at me was giving me the creeps too. When he persisted, I just shuffled away from him and towards the creatures. The only option I had was to run off before people showed up, so I got on my tiger friend.

The kid still didn't give up. He came over and grabbed my ankle.

"Wait! Please! Y-y-you don't have to tell me who you are, just let me look at your—"

I had them take me back home.

(...)

"—Face!"

He stared as the red-haired girl rose off on that huge tiger. Her short red hair waved in the wind, resembling a flame in the distance. Soon, the glow of her sword faded, and she was but a distant memory.

Never before in his life had he seen such an amazing sight. The way that she fought! That movement! She was a poem in motion—a song in motion! He could feel the words some up in his mind as the sirens closed in. The beat came soon after. This was going to be a hit!

He ran over to the wreckage and pulled out his songbook—miraculously intact. He went into a writing motion when he realized that what in his hand wasn't a pen, but an anklet. Etched in it was his first and only clue to the identity of one of the greatest works of living art he had ever seen.

_Central City High School_

He'd be staying in this city longer than he had imagined…

(…)

I yawned and looked at the clock. It was almost eleven in the morning.

Damn. I had slept in.

In an overwhelming flash, the events from last night came to mind. I shot up in bed and found Komaniu sleeping at my bedside. On one arm was a Bond Ring, and on the other, the Prismod. I ran madly into my bathroom and lifted up my shirt. A physique _way_ more toned than I remember, and a lot of cuts and bruises.

Oh my God…it wasn't a dream… I had saved somebody's life last night!

Exhilarated and relieved that my experience on Master Hill wasn't some sort of hallucination, I skipped down the stairs, ready for the most pride-filled Saturday I had ever lived.

My mom and dad gave me a warm welcome as I poured myself a glass of milk.

"You sure slept in. So did you hear the news?" My mom asked.

"No." I said as I finished a gulp of milk. "What about?"

"You know that new artist's music you've been listening to?" She asked.

There was a new up-and-coming music artist whose music I really liked. His name was Alex Skylark. His songs were pretty up-beat and meaningful, but I found most of his songs through homemade music videos on the internet—I've never seen his face.

"He got in a terrible car accident—some maniacs attacked his limo!" My mother exclaimed.

"Yikes. Is he alright?" I asked as I took another gulp of milk.

"See for yourself; he's on a local interview right now."

Still drinking, I went in front of the counter and looked at the TV, across the room.

"—And I won't leave this city until I find her!"

I spat out my milk in surprise.

"This girl was the most amazing thing I had ever seen! Ever since I saw her, I haven't been able to get her out of my head—and until I complete the image, I don't want her out of my head!"

The boy…from last night…was on the TV…talking about how I saved him!

The boy from last night was Alex Skylark! I saved a celebrity!

"So you're going to stay in Central City until you find this 'flaming-haired mystery girl,' and unless I misheard you, you say you already have an important clue as to her whereabouts?" The talk show host asked.

"Right here." Alex raised his hand, holding a small woven anklet. A bit of white text was showing.

I ribbed my right ankle with my left foot. No anklet.

The little corner of white was nowhere near enough for anyone to figure it out, but just enough for me.

Alex Skylark knew what school I went to!


	8. Jado Arrives

**Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah… updates are going to come a bit slower because… I'M TOTALLY SWAMPED WITH HOMEWORK THIS SEMESTER! I've got An AP course, an Honors course, and an extra SAT prep course all at the same time, all with lot's of homework! I HAVE TO FINISH 3 ESSAYS IN ONE MONTH FOR WORLD HISTORY!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 8

He looked back at his subordinate. "What did the search party find?" He asked.

She winced. "They were…defeated… by a Spectrobe Master."

He showed no emotion. "Send Jado to go and give our new Master a High Krawl greeting."

(…)

"When my assailant towered over me, I thought it was all over!" Everyone held their breath and waited for Alex to continue. "But then, she appeared!" My pencil nearly snapped between my fingers. "Flaming red hair!" Which is supposed to be near-black. "Hot, passionate eyes that were of no color that I had ever seen before," they're normally brown "but were somehow natural!" Actually I don't think that color is natural…

"What happened next, Alex?" Lily asked. I could not believe that she fell for this creep! I could not believe that I used to be a fan!

"They fought! But she easily won!" Actually no, some of the welts are still there to prove it. "She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen!"

There was a collective group of groans and whines from the disappointed girls. It was very clear to all of them that they didn't stand a chance against the "Flaming-haired Fighter" as some people had deemed her—as in ME!

So here's basically what happened in a nutshell: I come to school today to see Alex sitting _right freaking next to me_! He _transferred_! To _my_ school! It was a _miracle_ that the teachers had managed to get all the paparazzi to leave! How the heck was I, the mysterious Good Samaritan everyone was talking about, supposed to handle the fact that there was a pair of giant creatures hiding in my new watch?

For now, I was just happy that my hair and eyes went back to their original color. I doubt I would've been able to get away with using my mom's hair dye and sunglasses to hide the change. I don't generally use either, and I probably would have messed up. Badly.

"Alright, alright. Enough of this 'Flaming-Haired Fighter' nonsense. Get in your seats; it's time to start class."

Thank you Mr. Anderson.

All the students got into their seats and took out their basic supplies. First period was Honors Calculus. I managed to get into the course with a recommendation from my last math teacher. Although I haven't said it yet, but I've always had a knack for math—I've even enjoyed it. It's just… the raw logic. It's a hard science. If you do it right, you get it right. It's a simple as that.

How that Alex Skylark guy got into this class, I'll never know.

"Hey, you. Can I borrow a pencil?"

It was difficult not to groan. Why was I not surprised that he didn't come prepared?

It was hard not to blush at the sight of Alex's baby face. He was pretty h—I COME FROM A CONSERVATIVE FAMILY AND SWORE TO MYSELF THAT I WOULD NOT DATE UNTIL I WAS IN COLLEGE OUT OF RESPECT FOR MY PARENTS! I MUST HONOR THEIR WISHES!

"Herreyoucankeepit."

I think I took us both by surprise by how quickly I could speak.

About a good fifteen minutes of solid math class, and then…

"I don't get this!" Alex hissed in my ear.

I resisted the urge to growl. "Then maybe you should have signed up for more courses involving _music_?" I hissed back.

"Yeah, but I heard somewhere that being able to read music is supposed to, like, make you better at math." Alex told me.

"That only applies to normal _algebra!_ Not freaking _calculus_!"

"Mari, Alex. Unless you two are done with the exercise I assigned I'd suggest you stop talking." Mr. Anderson warned.

"Yes Mr. Anderson!" I said as I put my nose back in my text book.

(…)

Alex couldn't help but bother the girl in front of him—Mari as the teacher called her. Looking at her just gave him the biggest sense of… of… déjà vu! He didn't know when or where, but he had seen her face somewhere before. And looking at her face made him feel good, too.

Alex could feel another new song coming to mind…

(…)

"Ugh, thank God that's over," I breathed.

School was over for the day, and everyone was either on their way to their ride, or their after school activity. I was going to meet up with Mr. Anderson, Keith, and Lily for a biology tutoring thing. Keep in mind that I was one of the tutors. Maggie and Keith were having trouble, Mr. Anderson thought that a one-on-one thing would work better with them, and I was one of his top students. You do the math.

We met up at the desks in the lot behind the school. A lot of kids had lunch here when it was sunny. Football practice was going on in an area fenced off from ours, and the city was in clear view from where we were. Honestly, I have _no idea_ how the school managed to get this property. The views must have made it massively expensive. Maybe they got some kind of discount since they were a school.

We sat down, and we all got our books out. Keith and Lily had their notebooks open, ready for tutoring, but Mr. Anderson gave me no instructions on who I should take or where I should start. Did he expect me to figure out everything they were struggling in on my own? He said that he'd tell me what they needed help in so I could start there.

"Uh, Mr. Anderson. What's up?" I asked.

"Funny, I was expecting Alex to come. Well I guess we'll get started without him."

GOOD GOD! That kid was in almost all of my classes, _and _I'd have to tutor him? That would have _sucked_. I was so happy that for whatever reason he wasn't here right now. It made me so nervous being around him. Every time I caught a glimpse of him I became terrified that he was going to recognize me and tell the entire world that his classmate had control over a bunch of giant monsters. My. Life. Would. Be. Over. What kind of college would accept a freak vigilante? Not one I ran.

"So Lily; you seem to be having a lot of trouble with Osmosis," Lily nodded, "all you really need to know is that it's just water perm—" I cut myself off.

"What's wrong?" Lily asked.

I couldn't answer. I was about to go through water molecules in Osmosis when I felt a tingling sensation from within the Prismod. It was so sudden that I stopped, despite the fact that the tingling wasn't really that intense. I tried to go on, but the tingling rose to pins and needles. The pins and needles became so strong that it was really unpleasant, and finally borderline painful.

I gripped the Prismod in an attempt to hold back the near-stabbing sensation, but it didn't do much. As it became harder and harder for me to hide the fact that I was in severe pain, I showed more signs of it. Gale was the first to notice what was going on, and for some reason, he wanted _everyone_ to accompany me to the nurse's office.

"Listen, I just think it would be a really good thing for all of us to g—"

I tore away from him and started to claw at the Prismod. It wouldn't come off. My entire body felt like it was on fire, and I screamed from being so overwhelmed by the feeling. When the feeling finally started to subside, a lock of hair fell before my eyes. I saw that it was now flaming red.

"Well a female Spectrobe master! That's a first!"

We all looked up to see a being in a black cloak floating in midair. He had two arms, two legs, and one head like a normal person. But this man was not a normal person. I got the worst feeling of dread looking at him; his face was monstrous; and then there was the fact that his hair and skin were odd tinges of blue.

"Who are you?" I breathed.

"I am Jado of the High Krawl, but you can just refer to me as the one that will be killing you." He said with a cackle.


	9. I Killed Someone

**I would like to invite you people to read another story of mine on a site related to : , the original story site. The name of the story is **_**Unlimited Skye**_**, and it's about a girl who, after witnessing a car crash, receives an object from one of the victims. Little does she know, there are magicians after it! Little do they know, she has superpowers! **

**Go to the site, look it up, and tell me what you think!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 9

Alex ran as fast as he could. He didn't know this school _at all_. He was totally going to be late for his biology tutoring! Alex needed that help to get caught up with the other kids! Why did the only music curriculum have so many requirements when the school had so few options? Why couldn't his hero go to an art school? For now he'd have—

There she was. Standing right there. With beautiful flaming hair and burning eyes. He went up to her, but a fence stood between Alex and his inspiration.

Crap!

He had taken the wrong door!

There she was; right in front of his eyes! And he couldn't reach her!

"Prepare to die!" A hideous blue-skinned man cried.

(…)

"Jado" shouted one of the most cliché lines in history and raised his arm above his head. As he did, formless shadows arose from the ground and took shape. They formed more monsters like the ones from the other night. But this time the faceless, feetless, tiny-ovular-thing-handed monsters were blue and let off an aura of overwhelming energy.

Behind me, my friends were showing varied reactions.

Gale was making a sound that reminded me of growling; Lily, apparently unsure how to react, was borderline hyperventilating; Mr. Anderson stared open-mouthed.

As they solidified (?) I finally felt normal again and raised the Prismod. Two lights flew out and formed the massive creatures that were on my side.

"You guys back off!" I said as I drew my sword. How I could heave something that enormous around, _I still didn't know_.

"W-w-what are those things? W-w-why is your hair red? W-w-who is that blue guy?" Lily screamed.

"I'm Jado!" Jado cried.

"Shut up!" I shouted as I hacked at the monsters.

I noticed as the tiger bit into one monster and the…mace-tailed...thing…slammed his tail into another. (I really have to come up with better names for these guys!) They couldn't land an attack on a monster that was more than a yard or two away. If they wanted to they'd have to move in close and risk heavy hits.

Why didn't they have any long-ranged attacks?

As if he was reading my thoughts, my tiger opened his mouth towards Jado. A ball of lightning appeared within his mouth. It blasted out at the blue freak and hit him square in the gut.

I raised my arms and shouted in joy.

Once that display was done, blushing and embarrassed, I kept on fighting. That was a bad habit of mine that I needed to break.

Behind me, my friends were also cheering. I felt a tingling sensation from the Prismod—this time a far more enjoyable one—that spread through my body and sent (excited) chills down my spine. I bolted forward and slashed right through one of the monsters. It quickly melted away into shadowy dust.

"Is that the best you've got?" I bellowed. But it wasn't me—it was me in a way—but it was _another part_ of me; a _new_ part of me. One that had been hiding inside for God knows how long, just itching to burst out. And now it had; _she_ had; _**I**_ had.

"You INSECT!" Jado bellowed as he leapt to the ground. "How DARE you think you can defy me you—you—SCRAWNY LITTLE APE!"

I stabbed him without hesitating.

After you hit ten years of public school, you tend to ignore most of the lame insults. They bother you about as much as a small breeze.

Jado started screaming. Not in pain and not in anger. In…_insanity_. He started wailing like a maniac. He leapt back, my sword coming right out of his stomach, and kept on screaming. He kept on shouting stuff like _insect_ and _ape_ and insolent and _weakling_ and _disgrace_, all while hissing and cackling.

"Um…is he, like, epileptic or something?" Lily asked from behind.

I just shrugged. He sounded like some generic villain from an old _Transformers_ cartoon.

"YOU! You will NEVER defeat ME!" Jado bellowed.

Why was there emphasis on the "ME"?

Suddenly, more shadows appeared. But rather than forming more monsters, they formed around Jado. There was a disturbing hissing noise and I was hit with an ominous sinking feeling. I did a 180 and looked at my friends. There was even a kid staring at us from behind the fence.

"Guys! Get out of here!" I looked straight at the kid behind the fence, but didn't get a good look at his face. "You too!" I bellowed.

He stood there for a moment and then he shook his head. He ran off for a moment and came back with a baseball bat. He started to climb the fens and I was ready to tell one of my Creatures to go and get him down, but Mr. Anderson beat me to it. He tore the kid off the fens and they all ran away, the kid thrashing like a maniac.

If I hadn't been in a life or death situation, I would have palmed myself in the face.

The new and (un)improved Jado bolted forward with massive black claws. I raised my sword to block—and I did—but the massive force he unleashed was so great that my legs buckled beneath me and I was pushed into the ground. My sword pressed into my gut and knocked the wind out of me.

Jado raised a giant claw above his head and thrust downwards at my face. I closed my eyes, but there was a huge _THUD_ followed by more high-pitched bellowing from Jado. Mace-for-tail had rammed into Jado just in the nick of time. He picked me up by my shirt collar and helped me stand up.

Jado recovered and came at us before I had a chance to say thank you. We followed and went at Jado, halving the wait there would have been for his arrival.

This time I'd take the laws of physics into consideration. Rather than blocking Jado's blow, I turned my block into an attack by turning the blade upward and letting Jado do the work. He sliced his own hand in an attempt to repeat what had happened earlier.

"Attack him, now!" I bellowed.

Both my creatures leapt in while Jado was distracted by his injuries and dealt a devastating blow to both his sides. Jado tried to yell, but all that came out was a sudden cough, and a black fluid. I instantly realized that it was the Krawl equivalent to blood.

He crumpled to the ground and groaned. "Scrawny…little…ape. You may have defeated me…but you will never defeat…master Krux."

His eyes closed and my Spectrobes returned to the Prismod. I fell to my knees and went into a fetal position.

I had killed someone.


	10. It's only just beginning

**So sorry I took so long, but there were some issues with my flash drive. You see, I was finishing up the chapter during Winter Break, but I was in Florida and had to make do with the family laptop. Old laptop no likey mah flash drive. It kept on disconnecting and reconnecting for no apparent reason. The file was eventually screwed over and I had to start over. XP**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 10

Maja stared at the blue world, imagining the locals' faces of surprise and panic when Jado arrived. The presence of orbital satellites and probes on the nearby planets were enough proof of a somewhat advanced society, but Jado should be able to handle one Spectrobe Master. The populations of very few worlds were aware of the existence of the Spectrobes. These rarities were often underdeveloped and lacked a powerful military force. Either way, Jado would be just—

Jado's energies vanished from the face of the planet. Not a trace was left. There was only the tingle of a Spectrobe Master and his pets.

Maja felt ill.

Something had to be done. There was a Spectrobe Master on that planet and he was strong enough to take down a High Krawl! Something had to be done. Something would be done. She would ease Master Krux's worries, she would rule alongside him. She would—

"Maja."

It was Krux's voice, filled with calm and darkness. His mask pulsated with an ominous light. His arms were folded behind his back and his flowing hair was a fiery orange. Maja wondered what his face looked like, what color his skin was, whether he had the dark markings that she had always admired in High Krawl.

"I see that Jado has failed."

Maja wasn't sure how to respond.

"Prepare a proper force of attackers and bring down the Master's city. I've tapped into the Earthlings' data bases and learned much. The planet is still split between warring nation states. The one that is the home of the Spectrobe Master is infamous for being amongst the strongest. Do not fail me."

"Yes master Krux."

(…)

I staggered away from Jado's desolving corpse, my heart pounding. I had killed someone. It wasn't like an insect or a rat that didn't have any feelings or didn't know how to do anything beyond survive. Jado could talk. Jado could think. Jado could laugh (albeit rather maniacally.)

_Jado was alive._

I had killed a living being. I had murdered someone!

The epiphany was so awful, so sickening, that it made me sick. I had become one of the things that I hate the most: a killer. I fell onto my hands and knees and started to gag. Around me, several otherworldly wails rang out.

The Spectrobes.

They could feel my dismay, my sorrow. They were sad because I was sad. The only beings on this Earth that truly knew how I felt, and I couldn't even speak to them properly.

Once I stopped gagging, I sat on my knees and stared at the clear blue sky as the gentle breeze ruffled my hair. The breeze was unbelievably calm and showed no signs of the great battle that had just ensued (and mangled the field.) Occasionally, a few locks of my hair would come into view. They were still red. I knew that when I was in trouble, my hair would change color, but I didn't know the rules when it came to changing back.

_Who knows how long I'll be stuck like this. _

When I was a little girl, I would always play with my sisters outside in the sun. I wound up with the most distinctive tan out of the three of us. That, coupled with my near-black hair, often convinced people that I was Hispanic. Somehow, the transformation also affected my skin tone, making it fair.

I didn't want that.

I wanted to go back to the same dark hair that every member of my family had. I wanted to go back to the tanned skin that acted almost like a memento of my early childhood. I wanted to go back to not knowing what it was like to kill someone!

I could tell that the Spectrobes could also feel my concern, because they howled again and came to my side. The tiger nudged my shoulder with his nose. It was wet and cold, like a dog's. I couldn't help but laugh.

They really _did _care about me.

_Zozane._

What?

_Zozane. Spikan. _

I looked down at the Prismod. It was glowing. The tiger-like Spectrobe gently poked it with his claw and it came open like a laptop…sort of. The two trapezoids between the diamonds opened up like a laptop, while the diamonds came open to the sides. It was like the paper cutouts that teachers would give you in elementary school when you started to study polygons.

Two holographic images came up from the diamonds. The one on the right was of the mace-tailed Spectrobe, the one on the left of the tiger-like Spectrobe. The top screen glowed and two words appeared. _Zozane_ and _Spikan_ respectively.

"Those are your names…!"

"MARI!"

It was Keith. He was followed by Mr. Tanner, both holding baseball bats. I guess, since they saw the transformation, they now knew that the mysterious _Flaming-Haired Heroine_ was none other than their very own Mari Hero.

"Where are the monsters?" Keith asked. Behind him, Mr. Tanner was flamboyantly waving his bat around, ready for a fight.

"Dead," I responded.

I used the sword to prop myself upright.

"That's amazing," he breathed.

"No…it's not." I tried to get a hold of myself. "So where're Lily and Alex?" I asked.

Mr. Tanner coughed. "Well…Lily managed to calm Alex down by…"

"Hitting him where it hurts." Keith explained. "Or kneeing to be exact."

The image in my head was absolutely priceless.

Mr. Tanner approached me and started to examine my hair. The Spectrobes growled at him and he became nervous. I focused on the image of Mr. Tanner helping out injured students and tutoring me when I had troubles in school. They seemed to respond to this and calmed down.

"How in the world did this happen to you? Your hair is red! Your eye color changed! You somehow managed to yank a sword worthy of some crazy anime character out of thin air _and_ you have a bunch of monster minions! It's like some outrageous rip-off of _Poké_—"

I glared at Mr. Tanner. "Don't even go there."

He flinched. "Sorry."

"For now," Keith began, "There are still a lot of kids in the building. We should pull a fire alarm and get the school evacuated. Who knows when one of those Krawl will show up again."

"But we don't even know what these Krawl are! Or what those are!" Mr. Tanner gestured towards Zozane. "Or why in the heck Mari has flaming red hair and a giant blue sword! _Or_ why the Prismod turned into a_ laptop computer device_!"

The Spectrobes began to growl and I was hit with a massive wave of nausea.

"Get in there and pull that alarm, now!" I moaned.

Keith gasped. "Don't tell me—!"

I began to breathe deeply. "More are coming. More than before. A _lot_ more."

Mr. Tanner's eyes widened. "You mean you can _sense _them?"

"LOOK!" Keith shouted.

Up in the sky, dozens of black vortexes came down from the sky. They were all heading towards Central City.


	11. Keith gets himself captured

**Dude. I just wanted to say, Edward the Pure, your comment about my story being better than the actual game's story really got me excited to start this new chapter! **

**And there's something else you guys should know. **

**Sometimes I have inside jokes from my own life in these stories. I try to not do jokes that are hard to get, but they'd be even funnier if you knew what they really were. Check for the bold numbers and then the corresponding numbers at the end of the chapter to understand what they mean. **

**Oh, and sorry if there are some spelling errors in this document. I'm bouncing between a really good computer, and one that can't use spell check properly as I write this. **

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 11

Krux focused on the energies left over by the battle between Jado and the new Spectrobe Master. There was something…different about this one. It was very strange. The Master was very young; that much was easy to tell.

He wanted to know more about this Master.

"Maja." He said.

His loyal servant appeared, kneeling with one fist on the floor, behind him.

"Yes master Krux."

"Capture the Spectrobe Master. Alive."

"As you wish, Master Krux."

(…)

My stomach churned as the gravity of the situation set in. I wanted to throw up. Again. The first time in my life when I wanted to throw up twice in less than an hour without having eaten a large amount of dairy that entire day. I felt like I was a killer, I felt like I felt like my killing someone had done absolutely _nothing_ to prevent the major disaster that was already ensuing, _and_ I felt utterly and completely pathetic. Great boost to my self esteem.

"What in the world…?" Mr. Tanner breathed. His eyes suddenly widened. "MARI!" He gasped.

"No, my name's Anahita **(1)**," I shot back sarcastically. "WHAT? Can't you see that we have a situation on our hands?" I gestured towards the city. Central City was already releasing an eerie echo of countless sirens, and even some smoke plumes.

Mr. Tanner Beamed. "Didn't you say something about monsters appearing in black vortexes after you woke up back in the camp?"

I groaned. "_Now_ you believe me!"

"Well, can you _blame_ me for not believe you then and believing you now?" He shouted.

This was the first time that I had _ever_ gotten into a verbal argument with a teacher. The stress of the situation was seriously getting to us. My emotions were affecting the Spectrobes again; they shuffled around and started to growl, sometimes even glaring at each other whenever one got too close.

Keith stepped between us. "ALRIGHT!" He bellowed. "I can understand that you two are very stressed, but you cannot let the situation get to you! Right now, an army of monsters from God knows where is attacking your—_our_—home town, and Mari is the only one with the power to stop them."

Keith was right. We both calmed down and the Spectrobes stopped acting weird.

"During emergencies most people gather over here at the school," I said.

Mr. Tanner sighed. "I don't think that the security cameras saw that fight from earlier." He began to walk towards the building. "Mari, Keith. Give me your phone numbers. I'll go inside the school and see how everyone else sees what's going on in the city and keep you updated."

We nodded and did so.

"What are you going to do?" He asked.

"Mari and I will go into the city and fight." Keith explained.

Mr. Tanner and I both gawked at him. "You can't be serious!" Our teacher exclaimed. "It's unsettling enough that Mari, for whatever reason, has a new hair color and complexion, _as well as_ control over a pair of massive behemoths—apparently the natural enemy to these 'Krawl' no less—but I will not let two children run into a city that's being attacked by—by—_aliens_!"

I'm kind of glad that I didn't have to say it…

Keith sighed. "I'm afraid you'll have to." He proceeded to knock the wind out of Mr. Tanner by punching the man in his abdomen.

Even the Spectrobes seemed to be taken aback.

Keith grabbed my arm. "Come on!" He bellowed.

The sword dragging behind me, my strange little group ran towards the city, a groaning teacher pleading for us to come back as we did.

(…)

Keith groaned as he sat in the office. "I can't believe you did that to me." He was _still_ sore.

"Suck it up!" Lily hissed. "You may be cute—and a good singer—but you're not _that_ cute! Although you may be that good of a singer—but singing doesn't really go that far with a girl like me!"

After Lily had…subdued…Alex, she had dragged them to the main office so that they could warn the administrators of the dangers outside. Alex's condition greatly slowed them down, and once they had gotten to the office the administrators were already dealing with a dozen concerned students.

"There's something going on in the city!" One boy cried.

"What's going on?" A larger boy shouted.

A younger student, a middle school student at the building for some kind of afterschool program, was beginning to sob. "I just wanna go home!"

Lily noticed another girl on the cheerleading squad trying to console him. She came up to her. "What's going on?" Lily asked.

"There's something going on in the city." Her friend explained. "It's so bad that people are already starting to take shelter in the school. One kid got onto a local news website with their phone—their website shows the live broadcasts—and monsters are attacking the city! People are calling it some kind of alien invasion!"

Lily got her cell phone out. Her dad was in the military.

(…)

We decided to not ride the Spectrobes into the middle of the city as I waved my sword at Krawl, screaming random battle cries like a maniac. And I kind of liked that plan too. Instead, we ran towards the edge of the city, skirting around crowds of fleeing people and the occasional reporter that braved the ensuing chaos. We ran into a small group of Krawl on more than one occasion. Every time, my Spectrobes and I managed to dispatch them with ease.

After about the third skirmish and the fourth pass through the same street, I had had enough. "Where are we going?" I gasped.

"To find Komaniu!" Keith explained.

"What?"

Keith tossed his wooden baseball bat aside and grabbed a sturdy-looking pipe that was jutting out of a pile of rubble. "We're going towards your house! You said Komaniu was at your place, right?"

I threw my arms up in exasperation. "Why does Komaniu matter?" I asked.

"Because he's a Spectrobe, too!" Keith said.

"Say _what_?"

"He's a Spec—"

"No!" I shouted. "I know what you said!" I rubbed my forehead in exasperation. "You mean to tell me that you know what the Spectrobes are, and that Komaniu is one? And you didn't tell me?"

A thought suddenly came to me.

"You…you were the one that found me on Master Hill…! You…did you know about this the entire time and not tell me?"

Keith avoided my gaze. "Mari. I know that this may be a little confusing, but you have to understand. What was I supposed to tell you?"

"You could have come to me and said that you didn't think that I was crazy!" I shrieked.

I didn't want to see his face. I ran off and my Spectrobes followed.

(…)

Keith stared at Mari and the Spectrobes backs as they ran away from him.

He clenched his fists. "DAMN IT!"

He was so stupid! How could he have given himself away like that? Now it would take_ forever_ to get Mari to calm down enough to listen to him! Now, she was running into the middle of the city, randomly slicing away at Krawl. He had been careful to constantly check the news on his phone, skirting around any area that was the site of live coverage. It was the reason they had to keep on running around the same block over and over again instead of just running to Mari's house.

Keith started after her, but someone grabbed his shoulder. Keith assumed, based on the unusually strong grip, that it was a police officer, or even a member of the National Guard. He was ready to say that he knew how to get to the school, that he was going to get out of the area as soon as possible, and go back to searching for Mari the moment he was by himself. Instead, something cold like metal but soft like flesh wrapped itself around his body. Everything from the neck down was covered in a black net of some sort.

Keith screamed in anger and frustration as he was lifted by the ankles. A grotesque face—if you could call it a face; there were two glowing slits and teeth like those of an angler fish—stared back at him and let out a sound that was a cross between a gurgling and a growling. The rest of the beast's body matched its face.

Keith yelled and tried to break free, but the netting was too strong. He thrashed, but the Krawl paid no notice as it dragged him away.

(…)

It was unbelievable. If Central City were bigger, it would look like _Cloverfield_, right after the monster first showed up. Sadly, this was not just a (genius) movie, it was reality. By some miracle, most of the civilians were gone. I heard shots ring out, police officers give commands. The CCPD must have been taking on the Krawl all over the city.

I wanted to leap in, be the hero, save the day, but I had to get home. I didn't know where my parents were or where they had gone. Whenever we watched disaster movies we'd always say that while the town was having a meeting on what to do, we'd already be hightailing it out of town. Now, for the first time in my life, I hear real life emergency sirens echoing throughout the area. Did they decide to go to the school, wait it out? Part of me was terrified that there were a bunch of Krawl ransacking my house at that very moment.

The Spectrobes waited outside as I entered my house.

Thankfully, when I unlocked the door and entered the house, almost everything was unsettled. One cabinet was open; the one where mom and dad kept their medications. The family laptop and the flash drives dad kept his work on were gone too. Upstairs, the closet with our extra sheets in it was empty. The only things taken from my room were a few family photos and some of my favorite outfits, as well as the security blanket my big sister gave to me the day I was born. I had always kept it safe and I always knew where it was. My parents knew not to leave it behind.

I could tell that they had gotten all the necessities together and got out of the place. On the way back out, I found a note on the door.

_If you find this, the family living here is at Central City High School. _

My parents really knew how to think ahead.

Relieved, I realized that I should head back to the school A.S.A.P. I decided to grab a few of the things my parents had been in too much of a hurry to grab (my personal laptop, my favorite books, my manga) and head out.

"Nyaraoo."

It was Komaniu!

The little guy wagged the tiny stub of a tail he had and leapt into my arms. I was about to pet him, but he leapt right out of my arms again and ran down the stairs. I followed him, but he was already outside, sitting on Spikan's shoulder. I got the message and got on Zozane.

(…)

Keith was the only person in the massive net of Krawl webbing. Everyone else was unconscious. He could feel the webbing sucking the energy out of his body.

He didn't know why he was struggling. Keith had dropped the metal pipe, his only weapon, ages ago. He was barely strong enough to take on a weak Krawl, let alone the monster that had been dragging people away. It must have been the natural instinct. Despite the stupidity of his actions, his body performed them without thinking. It was like sliding on ice in a car and slamming on the breaks; it was the last thing you were supposed to do, but you still did it.

"Bring that one down here." A female voice called out.

Keith saw a woman in a cloak pointing at him.

"GET AWAY FROM HERE!" He bellowed. "GO! NOW! YOU'RE IN DANGER!"

She laughed. She pulled off her black hood.

She was another High Krawl.

Keith didn't know how to react as more of the Krawl that had abducted him lowered her before the High Krawl. Never, in all of his years raised on the tales of Spectrobe Masters battling creatures of darkness, had he imagined that a creature of darkness could be a woman. She certainly wasn't attractive—Keith found girls that dyed their hair intimidating, let alone one with purple skin—but she certainly wasn't the kind of ugly that Jado was.

"You bear a weak scent of Spectrobe, boy."

He decided to play dumb. "What are you talking about?"

The woman Krawl frowned. More webbing appeared behind her. She took a seat on it. "Have you seen anyone with flaming red hair and auburn eyes?"

"And if I have?"

She smiled and crossed her legs. "Then he comes with us and we leave this city in peace. Don't you want that?"

She was lying.

Keith smiled coolly. "I'm sorry to say that I haven't."

"Know how you were screaming earlier, boy?"

He stared.

She pointed at him and more webbing wrapped around his mouth. Keith struggling, he was taken back into the web.

"It was annoying." She said. "Be bait for me, would you?"


	12. I nearly get myself captured

**Do you guys like Transformers? Do you dislike the fact that in almost every alien show out there, the aliens can kick the crap out of humanity and we can't do a darn thing about it without some sort of alien help? Then look forward to my next fanfiction, **_**Don't Underestimate Us**_**.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 12

It almost felt bad to feel so good riding on top of my Spectrobes. The desolation that we rode through marred what should have been an amazing experience. Crystal City hadn't been completely destroyed, but it seemed like it had been abandoned. Now, people can spread information at awe-inspiring speeds and its changing the world as we speak. Word spread that the city wasn't safe and people got the message.

Komaniu seemed extremely uneasy. Every two minutes, he'd start to growl and bark(?) and in two seconds a Krawl would pop up. I'd follow with a sword to the alien monster's head.

This process had repeated a good five or six times when Komaniu up and leapt off of Zozane and ran off. Naturally, Zozane and Spikan turned to follow. I would have stayed that way, but we heard helicopters and gunshots nearby. I had to follow on foot so that we weren't as conspicuous.

"Komaniu!" I called out. "Komaniu—OH MY GOD!"

Giant. Black. Krawl. Web. Of death. Spidey aint got nothing on the Krawl that spun this thing.

It was _right flipping there_! In between two office buildings, spanning across the entire street and no one had done anything! _What the crap?_ Were the police too busy to…fighting… alien monsters… OK, but it was still pretty stupid!

"Zozane! Spikan! We look for Komaniu once we take care of this." Yeah. They could understand full sentences now.

I got the sword ready for some serious hacking.

Zozane made a sound that I assumed would be the same sound a _liger_ makes when it tries to purr. Keep in mind that ligers are the largest cats in the world. Next to Zozane. His neck was craned up at the web. I followed his gaze and saw…

No…

"KEITH?" I bellowed.

He was wrapped up pretty badly and it looked like he was out cold, but there was _no_ mistaking that gruff tanned complexion that every Native American descendant had. That was the kid who knew about the Spectrobes before I did alright! The question was, how should we get up there?

"Spikan!" I shouted.

He came over to me.

I had seen in battle how much of a knockback factor Spikan's tail…mace…thing…? I had seen how much of a knockback factor Spikan's tail had in battle. One direct hit could push a Krawl back a good ten feet or so. Now all we had to do was see if he had the accuracy to back up all that raw power.

It started off with some very awkward gesturing, where I tried to use my sword and a rock to demonstrate what he should do. I guessed that he didn't get it, because both Spikan and Zozane gave me the same look that Mr. Tanner gives to a student that tries to make a pop culture reference in class.

I got so frustrated that I just leapt onto Spikan's tail, at which point, he launched me into the web.

Violence _can_ solve our problems! :D

Thankfully, the web wasn't sticky, so I just climbed up to Keith. He was gagged and out cold, but he looked alright. I wasn't only relieved because he was OK, but because I wasn't the one in his position. What roles people would play in different apocalyptic scenarios is a popular topic of lunchtime discussions at school. I always like to say that I'd be the one to survive and save the day, but I always feared that I would either get captured or killed. I'm glad it turned out to be the former.

"Keith. Come on. Wake up, Keith!"

I tried to get all the webbing off of him without accidentally making it so that he'd fall off the web. That's when his eyes began to open.

"Ugh…where…?"

"You got captured. Now hold on while I get you—"

His eyes suddenly widened.

"NO! MARI! IT'S A TRAP!" He bellowed.

I could feel the energy leaving my body. I dropped the sword and it lodged itself in the ground as I became limp. I got tangled in the webbing and remained upright, unable to move well, as a person in a cloak similar to Jado's floated before me.

"Well this is certainly a first." It was a woman. She had that same colored skin covered in strange markings, only purple instead of blue. "A female Spectrobe master. Who would have thought it possible?"

My hair went from flaming red to auburn.

"Wrap her up, boys! We got what we came here for!" She said with a laugh.

The webbing started to wrap my body in a cocoon. My Spectrobes couldn't reach me, so they were running around on the street, roaring in anger. The energy was being sucked out of my body; I could feel it and I couldn't do anything about it.

"Now then," she though aloud. "Should we just leave the city in peace?" The question was directed towards the Krawl. "Or should we leave it in pieces?"

The Krawl responded with more growls and gurgles.

"Pieces it is!" She said happily.

"Who…who are you?" I grunted.

She looked back at me.

"Maja of the High Krawl." She said. "I was sent here by my master to pick you up and bring you to him."

"Who is your master?" Keith managed to shout.

She snapped her fingers and Keith was pulled up by the Krawl. Damn it. If Maja had dropped him than the Spectrobes could have caught him.

Maja chuckled. "You're no longer of any use to me, kid. Be a good child and be a chew toy for my pets."

"You _monster_!" I bellowed. "Does life mean anything to you? Why are you doing this? What purpose does it serve you to spread destruction like this? Does it entertain you?"

Maja sighed. "Yes. Enacting my master's will makes my master and I very happy."

"I'm not asking what makes your master happy; I'm asking what makes _you_ happy! Forget about whether this is your master's will or not. Would you still be happy? Would you still gain the same sadistic pleasure from destroying things the way you do?"

Maja gave me a blank stare.

"What makes me…happy. What makes me happy?" She held her head. "Why do _you_ care?"

"One: Don't answer my question with another question, please. And two: because you're _alive_, Maja. You're a person."

I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

She raised her hand. For a moment, I thought that she was going to release me. But then she started clawing at her hair and screaming. She started hissing things like _Krux_ and _purpose_, _loyalty_, _saved me_, _protect everything_, and all sorts of gibberish that sounded like different languages.

"END THEM N—" Komaniu leapt onto her face.

I was so shocked that I didn't know how to react. I guessed that Maja was the same way, because she just floated there, her neck craned up and a mini-Spectrobe sitting on her face. He was wagging that little stub Lily called a tail and he had a yellow and blue rock in his mouth. He turned his head suddenly.

I managed to get one arm out of the webbing and grab the stone. It had a strange, elongated shape, so it just barely grazed the Prismod.

There was a flash of light as Maja finally came to her senses and tore Komaniu off of her face. Spikan managed to catch the little guy before he hit the ground.

Maja was about to tell her Krawl to attack, and I was about to break free and pray to God that one of the Spectrobes caught me too, but we were both startled again.

There was a massive bird perched on my arm.

It wasn't like any bird I had ever seen. It had golden feathers, a red crown, blue wings, and a long tail. It was beating its wings slightly, which explains why it didn't feel like I had a two ton bird resting on my arm.

The Prismod beeped.

_Aoba. _

"Aoba!" I shouted. "Get us out of this web!"

Aoba let out a majestic caw, leapt off my arm, and flew into the air. Within a blink of an eye, he was coming downwards like a jet doing a suicidal nose dive. He managed to slice through the webbing surrounding both Keith and I. We fell to the ground. Spikan caught us and set us on the ground.

Keith still seemed weak, but I could feel my energy coming back already.

"Insolent brat!" Maja bellowed.

I got the sword, Maja was poised to launch a Krawl attack, but we stopped at the sound of a helicopter flying overhead. It arrived on cue, but it was no normal helicopter. It was outfitted with large machine guns and had the logo of the US army painted on the side.

"The army!" I shouted.

It pretty much turned the web and the Krawl all over it into Swiss cheese.

"We'll settle this later," Maja hissed. She vanished in a puff of black smoke.

There was no point. The fight was over. I called my Spectrobes back into the Prismod and we got the heck out of there.


	13. Things are getting complicated

**Don't think I'm going to do Don't Underestimate Us for a good long while. It was going to feature one heck of a Mary Stu for an OC, but her backstory kept on evolving, so it'll be an original story that will be similar to this fanfiction in terms of feel and main character. One main difference is that it'll be a fantasy with some comedy elements instead of a science fiction work. I've already specified where I post my original work in another chapter. I'll tell you guys when it's up.**

**Oh, and another thing.**

**Something that I enjoy doing when I'm bored and have nothing to do is go back and watch older anime that are considered "classics" and laugh at them. It's amazing what used to be the standard for "an interesting and unique plot." XD. I've gotten some inspiration though, and I'm thinking about doing a rewrite once I'm done with this. The only things that will be the same are the main character and the **_**very**_** basic plot. Tell me what you think.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 13

Maja bit her thumb nail as she saw the plumes of smoke throughout the city. They had been diminishing. These humans were very different from those on other planets. They could fight. They had been forcing back her Krawl, slowly encroaching on the hive she had spent so much time building.

These insects could stand a chance against them in a fight. It sickened her, ashamed her. They had weapons technology, strategy, even _air support_! Their plan was to set up base in the city once they had the planet's one true threat to the Krawl—the Spectrobe Master—and gloat about their victory to the masses. They'd set up base in the city and slowly spread their parasitic power over the entire planet, sucking it dry.

It was shameful.

"Maja."

She stood and looked behind her. There was a very familiar form there. She immediately fell to her knees, one fist on the ground.

"Master Krux," she said.

"It seems that we both underestimated these humans."

She remained silent.

"We may have been too rash in our decision to launch an invasion, but we have already made our move. I will provide you with reinforcements. The Spectrobe Master will come to his people's aid."

(…)

Robertson remained calm on the outside, but the aura around him and his clearly active effort to retain his composure were signs to all those that knew him that he had a lot on his mind. He didn't care. He did not know the people he was about to meet with personally, but he respected them none the less.

He entered the conference room and calmly took a seat. A plasma screen TV was mounted on the front wall of the room, the Presidential Seal shone brightly.

"Gentlemen," he began, "and ladies."

He wasn't about to have something in common with those sexist buffoons from third-world countries that called themselves leaders.

"According to our Intel, today at thirteen hundred hours, what can only be described as 'unidentified malicious…creatures…were spotted all over Central City. Local law enforcement did everything in their power to hold these creatures back. Their weapons had little to no effect." He paused. "Now update me on the situation."

A Hispanic woman in a pencil skirt and a blazer opened a manila folder, looked through it, and responded. "The CCPD called for backup from law enforcement agencies all over the state. Initially, they were also overwhelmed but no one in the army took their calls for assistance seriously. The city most likely would be completely decimated if not for the quick response of General Liam Watterson."

"Why was it him that somehow managed to get our armed forces mobilized and in the city?" Robertson asked.

"In hindsight, his actions may have been panic due to the plight of his daughter's safety," she responded.

"Excuse me?" He asked.

"His daughter called him on special emergency number only high-ranking members of the military and their families are aware of. His hasty actions very well may be the reason that the army is holding back these…creatures. Once the gravity of the situation became apparent, he sent forces to defend key locations such as the local power plant and the largest public high school in the area—where most evacuees are staying right now."

"Where is General Watterson right now?" He asked.

A middle-aged African American man answered. "He is still running forces from the sidelines. Man'll probably get the Medal of Honor when all of this is said and done."

Lucky jerk.

"How is the public reacting to all of this?" Robertson braced for bad news.

Several groans rang out in the room. An older man sighed. "News agencies from as far as Korea are scrambling to get into Central City. The national media is already flooding the White House phone lines, demanding interviews and a press conference date. Conspiracy theorists are having a field day—calling the incident in Central City everything from an alien invasion to the End of Days."

Robertson groaned. "Get the president briefed on the situation and get a press conference scheduled. I want every known expert on the study of new animals and biological materials on our pay role A.S.A.P. Get special teams of doctors out there."

Robertson began to go through a mental check list.

"I want doctors, soldiers, and Special Forces agents in that city right now. Get every state-side military base on high-alert' we don't know whether this is an isolated incident or not. Be ready to put the city on quarantine. And do not, I repeat, do not let the nation fall into panic. I want everyone unaffected living their daily lives, you hear me."

(…)

The moment that I stepped through the gym doors, two people were wrapping their arms around me. My parents. My mom was sobbing and saying some really embarrassing _Oh my baby_ stuff. My dad tried to retain his composure, so his hug was silent. It must have been a good two minutes before they were willing to let me go. Another ten before they stopped pelting me with questions. Another thirty before they finally cooled off and let me go look for my friends.

On the way back, I figured out how to willingly call my Spectrobes back and turn my hair back to normal. The sword had vanished along with my hair's red color.

I basically wove through the crowd and looked for all of my school friends. Thankfully, it looked like almost everyone made it. Sadly, 'everyone' only consisted of my school friends, and a lot of them had parents that worked deep in the city, still yet to arrive or answer their phones. It was so surreal, and I was so grateful that my parents (and my house for that matter) were alright.

"Marie!"

Lily ran up to me and gave me a hug that rivaled the group hug I had with my parents.

"Is, um…_he_…here?" I asked hesitantly.

"Alex has been talking to his publicist nonstop since people started showing up in the school. He went to one of the empty classrooms to get some privacy. I tried to listen in. It sounds like the publicist wants to use this disaster to help improve Alex's image, but Alex says that he'll have no part of it unless at least half of any proceeds go to the relief effort."

My image of Alex went from somewhat shallow, to somewhat compassionate.

"But never mind, him. Let's talk about _you_—or better yet, the _red-haired_ you!"

I placed my hand over Lily's mouth and shushed her.

"Is there anywhere we can talk _privately_?" I hissed.

Lily nodded. She walked me down the halls of the school, strewn with people—mostly students—all walking around, some sobbing, others repeatedly trying to make calls on their cell phones. At one point, an African American girl who had her phone on speaker gets the person she's calling to answer. After a few words that sounded like _I'm OK_ and stuff like that, she squealed with joy, tears streaming down her face, and ran to the gym.

"That was Destiny. She's been trying to get to her mom since you vanished!"

At least some stories had happy endings.

We entered one of the computer labs. Each row was elevated higher than the one in front of it, and each student technically had two desks, as there was a long counter stretched out before the desks, and one behind them with their computers. Rooms like this had most of the school's chairs with wheels, since that made switching around easier. Lily and I had fourth period in this room; we took digital design. Mr. Tanner sometimes took the normal teacher's place when he wasn't present for some reason. He was sitting at the teacher's desk, holding an icepack to his stomach. Oh yeah.

"It still hurts?"

I didn't realize that I spoke aloud until Mr. Tanner looked up at me, stunned.

"Mari!" He shouted. He winced as he leapt out of his chair and gave me a hug. "Thank goodness you're alright!"

He looked at me for another moment and ran his fingers through my hair.

"Yeah. It's the closest thing to a true occurrence of black in nature again. Now let's talk about you!" I joked.

Mr. Tanner laughed. I waited for him to sit down before I explained what happened.

"So Gale knew about those things—"

"Spectrobes."

"—the entire time?" Mr. Tanner exclaimed.

We heard typing. Lily had made her way to one of the computers while I was telling my story.

"What are you doing?" We both asked.

"Research, duh."

"On what?" Mr. Tanner sighed.

"Isn't it obvious?" Lily turned her screen towards us. She was at the Master Peak Camp website. She clicked the mouse and a Google search result page opened up. Spectrobes was the first keyword in the search.

"Guess what?" She didn't wait for us to guess. "Remember how Keith's uncle said that something couldn't be translated back at the campsite? Some people tried and they're, like, ninety percent sure that it's something that would sound like 'speck' in English in it."

My stomach did a back flip.

"You're quite the sleuth, Lily!" Mr. Tanner exclaimed.

Lily smiled.

"Mr. Tanner. You've got a few science degrees, right?" I asked.

"I majored in biology."

"Can you figure out what this little guy is?"

I took off my backpack, put it on the ground, and gently opened it. Komaniu was inside, sleeping. I still hadn't figured out why he wouldn't go into the Prismod like the other Spectrobes did. Or why he wasn't a _massive monster _worthy of a _Final Fantasy_ summon. He looked more like a djin from _Golden Sun_.

"Sweet mother of God!" He exclaimed.

"That goes against my beliefs." Lily said with a raised arm.

Mr. Tanner had leapt onto his table. He was holding a stool like a lion tamer.

"What in the world_ is_ that thing?" He shouted.

I swear, Komaniu looked offended.

"Keith says it's a Spectrobe. I want you to see if you can find anything strange about it. By the way, its name is Komaniu."

"Find out if there's anything weird about it?" He cried. "Everything is weird about it! That thing has virtually no traits in common with any form of life ever seen on this earth—besides the fact that it's a quadruped, that is—but _still_!"

"What's a quadruped?" Lily asked.

"Something that has four legs." I answered.

Komaniu started to walk around, so Mr. Tanner kept the stool trained on him. "And that quadruped, Komaniu, looks like an Aztec hieroglyph!"

Komaniu walked away from Mr. Tanner and towards Lily. She picked him up and pet him like a lapdog. He sniffed and nudged Lily's bond ring.

"It's kind of amazing that he managed to stay so calm in the presence of full grown Spectrobes." I sighed.

"One: How do you know that they're full grown? Two: I WAS HOPPED UP ON MY BODY'S OWN ADRENALINE!" He shouted.

"Alright, alright, sheesh!" I groaned. "You're gonna make someone think that the Krawl got in here."

A pounding came on the door. Keith burst in.

"Mari! Where's Koman—" He notices Komaniu. "Oh—OH!"

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"The army's here!"

"We kind of already knew that." Lily sighed.

"No! That's not it! They're examining _everyone_!"

Lily continued to pet Komaniu. "What's the big deal?"

I knew the answer. If they found Komaniu, he was as good as dissected!


	14. A dark sign

**Ugh. Horrible cough and I don't know why the heck I have it. But on the bright side, I'm on page sixty of my novel!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 14

Deep breaths, Mari, _deep_ breaths.

"Just stay calm." Keith said.

Lily came up behind me. "They can smell your fear!" She hissed.

"Not helping!" Keith fired back.

Physical examinations were being done in the band room. The chairs were moved into the closet and the room had been divided by a large hospital curtain. Everyone had been given numbers and were being called into the room regularly. Only people that were called in could go in, save for parents that had to watch their kids.

"Boys on the left, girls on the right!" A nurse shouted.

According to what I heard, they were giving everyone every examination that they could give without signed consent. The government was subjecting the citizens of Central City to everything from blood tests, to psychological screenings, to any "strange" systems, and every doctor in the building was helping out. Even Mr. Tanner, being a licensed male nurse, was recruited to help out.

"So where did you hide…_you know who_?" Keith hissed.

"_You're not really whispering—a lot of people probably just heard that_." Lily jeered. "I'm just kidding—I only heard that because I'm right behind you."

"Can we just focus on the situation at hand?" Keith exclaimed.

I laughed as we stepped up to the curtain.

"Hold on there, Casanova."

The person directing all the people that needed to be examined grabbed Keith by the arm and pushed him into the guys' side. Lily and I laughed as he blushed. We went through the curtains. There were even more little rooms made out of curtains all over. A volunteer worker told us which rooms to go to.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the person that would be giving me a physical was a woman standing by a cot. She was in a white lab coat, wore glasses, and had pretty Asian features.

"Thankful it wasn't a guy?" She asked.

I nodded.

"Nervous huh. And with a body like yours. The world sure has changed."

I chuckled nervously. "It's not so much that as the fact that I sort of come from a conservative family."

"Parents don't let you date?"

"I don't _want_ to date."

She took out a syringe. "Hope you're not afraid of needles. You can call me Doctor Terra, by the way."

She took a blood sample and I tried to make small talk.

"So. Volunteer, recruit, or government worker."

"Recruit." She said. "I'm fresh out of medical school and have yet to get a good job. Hopefully, this'll look good on my resume. Shirt off."

I thought I misheard her. "Excuse me?"

"We have to do everything we can do without a parent's consent."

I did what she said. She pressed on the small of my back and I stifled a gasp. It almost felt like she stabbed me.

"You have some serious bruising."

"I…uh…fell down some stairs."

It was honestly the first thing that came to mind. Stupid pop-star hating Krawl. _I_ was surprised that I still had marks from that.

"Have you had this checked out? It looks serious."

Oh crap.

"I think I should get one of the government—"

Government. The _last_ word I wanted to hear. She was about to lean out of the curtain and call for someone!

"Excuse—"

Crap. Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap-crap-crap-crap!

"I ALREADY HAD IT CHECKED OUT!" I bellowed as I grabbed her white lab coat.

She stared at me for a moment.

"By whom, might I ask?"

"By…uh…" Someone that I can trust to tell a lie for me. Parents are out of the question. "My biology teacher!"

She asked incredulously, "Your…biology teacher?"

"Yeah! H-he's also licensed in first-aid! He's over on the guys' side right now!"

Well, he was.

In response to this, Dr. Terra grabbed my arm and marched me over to the other side of the curtains. Where the guys were being examined.

I'll leave out most of the details. All you need to know is that I stared at the floor, my face flushed.

Dr. Terra tore through one last curtain and I heard a man gasp and a boy yelp.

"I believe this was the man you were talking about?" She asked.

Mr. Tanner was gawking at us while Alex frantically searched for his shirt.

"What are you—?" Mr. Tanner stammered.

"Did you give this girl a checkup earlier?" Dr. Terra asked.

Behind her, I pointed at the Prismod, praying that it was a big enough _THIS INVOLVES THE SPECTROBE SECRET_ signal.

"Ah—uh—yes. Yes I did."

"And you dismissed the bruising as nothing, am I right?"

Mr. Tanner seemed confused. Alex wasn't looking so I—God forgive me—lifted up my shirt and gave Mr. Tanner a quick glimpse of what the good doctor was talking about. Dr. Terra started to turn, so I pulled my shirt down and flashed a nervous smile at her.

"It…happened before all of this madness."

I gave Mr. Tanner a thumbs up sign as Alex finally got his shirt on.

"Sorry I had to put you through that," said Dr. Terra. "We can go back now."

And lo, let the floor-staring begin! Again!

(…)

"Do we really have to do this?"

"Yes."

"Even if it kills us?"

"Oh yeah."

"We can't even back track to the city and look for some weapons or something?"

"I have mace."

"_What good is mace against an alien?"_

Jessica slapped her hand over her cameraman's mouth. He whimpered. She scowled at him.

The poor man had been complaining since they left the school to go into the city. He was terrified—and she didn't blame him—but they were too deep into the city now; going back (alone) was the last thing anyone who's seen a single horror movie _reference_ in their entire lifetime would be dumb enough to do. Most people would agree; they'd rather head into the belly of the beast with a friend than make the tread back to safety alone.

"So where are we going to do the broadcast from?" he asked.

"The military has been getting into skirmishes with these things all day. I want to find the site of a fight and broadcast in front one of those things' corpses." She answered.

"But how are we supposed to do that without getting _caught_ in one of the fights?" Cody asked.

Jessica groaned. Her longtime friend had the looks of a male model, but the creativity and ambition of an accountant.

"Listen! This isn't the end of the world! Mobile internet still works! I've been checking the blogs and all the satellite feeds. A few blocks ahead we'll be at the site of one of the skirmishes. Even if we can't find a monster corpse, it'll still be pretty surreal."

Cody gawked at her. "Why are you so serious about this?"

"Because this is our big break!" She beamed. "No one else was in the area, we were the first on scene, _and_ we managed to get some great footage! The station is freaking out and they want more. If we get just a little bit more nominee-worthy footage and the network will have us doing the nightly news for the next ten years! We might even land a job at one of the big-time corporations! Think about it. CNN! ABC! NBC! They'll all want us!"

She looked back at Cody, expecting to see inspiration and newfound strength in his face, but he was pale. His eyes were as wide as saucer plates. He was overcome with fear. She was so taken aback that it took her a moment to realize what it meant.

She shot around. The moment that she caught a glimpse of the many creatures, a hand clamped around her neck. The dark figure lifted her off of her feet. She couldn't scream. She couldn't breathe. All she could do was squirm and frantically think as the adrenaline in her bloodstream caused every system in her body to go into overdrive.

"PUT HER DOWN!"

She caught a glimpse of Cody, holding a discarded baseball bat, getting lifted off of his feet and pinned down by more of those monsters. He screamed and thrashed frantically.

This man was in control of them—he was commanding them. She didn't know how or why, but she just knew it!

And now they were at his mercy. The mercy of a man that had nearly decimated an entire city full of innocent civilians without provocation.

(…)

The sun had just set and everyone was setting up their beds. It reminded me of the episode of _Rocket Power_ that I had seen when I was a little kid. A hurricane had run through the town where the characters lived and everyone had to take refuge in the high school gym, praying that their homes were alright. Most sane people would agree that they _wished_ they were only waiting out a storm.

The students—a good portion of them not from this school—all sat in clusters, the same as their cliques at school. Some that I knew clearly had lost members and gained new ones. Students that I never thought would speak to each other were consoling one another. This incident must have been a real wakeup call for a lot of people up, gotten them to forget petty teen drama and focus on what was really important.

The faculty had been kind enough to agree to bring in some of the TVs the school used to play movies and hook them up so people could watch the news. There must have been five or six around the room; no more than one of them ever showed something besides what was going on in town at a time.

I was sitting with my mom and dad when I noticed Dr. Terra running around with a little girl on her hip. The girl's eyes were red and puffy, and it looked like she was barely old enough to be in Pre-K. She must have been crying a lot today. I didn't blame her.

I went over to her and asked "Is everything alright?"

"M-Mari?" she stammered. "Thank God! Could you give me a hand for a moment?"

"Sure."

She led me by the arm to a group of little kids, several of them sobbing. There wasn't a parent in sight.

"Their parents are all either out of town or MIA. Could you try and keep them busy while I go call up a social worker I know?"

I nodded. Dr. Terra left. Things got awkward.

I had four kids bouncing on my legs at once. I tried to calm the others down by telling them what middle and high school would be like. They kept on asking me when this would all be over and when they could see their parents again. It honestly made me feel sick to have to say that I didn't know. I was at the end of my wits when Lily, Keith, and Alex all came to my rescue.

Keith and Lily helped out with the knee-horse ride things while Alex brought out a guitar and started to sing for the kids. He started teaching them about music and even let a few of them try to play a few chords.

Then the little girl that had been with Dr. Terra pulled out a little plastic box. It was covered in glitter and stickers and had a little plastic bow with a keyhole on it. The lock was clearly fake because she opened it just by pulling it up. Inside were like a dozen rings—Bond Rings. She started to hand them out.

"Do you really want to do that?" Lily asked.

"It must have taken a while to get all of these." Alex added.

She shook her head. "I was gonna gib them away at my birday pardy." (Aw…) "But den da monsders came, so, so now, I gib dem do you guys, 'cause, 'cause you guys are my friends."

SO CUTE!

Lily and I gave her a hug and we each took a ring. Keith had trouble biting back a smile and Alex snapped a quick picture.

"LILY!"

We all looked up as one of Lily's friends flailed his arms at the nearest TV like a maniac. Everyone in the room was staring at a TV, and all the TVs were showing the exact same thing; some kind of dark room.

The boy came up to Lily and showed him his iPhone.

"Every phone that can do video feed's showing it too!"

He was right!

"Turn up the volume!" Alex hissed.

The kid obeyed.

I expected to see something—some_one_—like Maja cackling on the screen, announcing their intentions to wipe out humanity and suck our planet dry, but no one spoke. The site was still unbelievably unsettling. The screen was filled with dozens of monsters—Krawl. They were bigger and uglier than the ones that attacked the city. They could only be described as grotesque abominations. People began to debate, argue, and shout.

The camera began to shake. The deafening wave of human voices fell silent.

A shadowy figure in a glowing mask was shown, and then the signal blacked out.


	15. Not a frickin' clue

**Thank you for all the encouraging reviews! If you thought that the last few chapters have been intense plot wise, you'll LOVE this one!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 15

My mother was calmly facedown. My dad was snoring. The only sounds in the gym were breathing, snoring, and the occasional weirdo talking in their sleep. No one was up and about.

FINALLY! Ugh, it had taken two cans of Monster to keep me up this long!

I slowly eased out of my bed and grabbed my bags. Mom and dad didn't even stir. The only real challenge was getting the gym doors open without getting the light sleepers in the room to look up. I nearly leapt out of my shoes when I saw that some of the lights in the building were still on. Even so, I managed to creep away, unnoticed.

First stop was my locker. Komaniu was asleep, but his pile of pebbles was gone, but I was thankful that they hadn't shown up again. He read my thoughts and quietly hopped out and followed me.

Next, I made my way to the girls' bathroom. In there, I got out of my pajamas and got on a pair of shorts, a white tank-top layered on a longer gray one, a black sleeveless hoody jacket, and my converse. I took my two Bond Rings and put them on a necklace. I put the hood up and looked in the mirror. You'd have to be two feet away to recognize me. Perfect.

I shouldered my bag and snuck out of the building.

"Where do you think you're going?"

I almost screamed, but it was Mr. Tanner.

He looked at Komaniu. "You're heading into town to fight those things, aren't you?"

"And you came here to try and stop me." It wasn't a question.

"What else do you expect of me?" He exclaimed. "You're a child! Barely even sixteen! And yet you think that it's your responsibility to fight some damned alien invasion!"

"Well who the heck else is going to fight them?" I fired back.

"The military!" he bellowed. "They managed to today!"

"Yeah. Barely. You saw that broadcast. Those Krawl today were only the beginning, and I have the power to stop them!"

Mr. Tanner clenched his fists. "Why do you have this power? Why couldn't it have fallen upon someone else? Why can't it be passed onto someone else?"

I grit my teeth. "It just doesn't work like that."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do!"

"That's still not an excuse!" He bellowed. "You should be worrying about college and the SAT! You shouldn't have to fight an entire army. You're just a kid! IT SHOULDN'T BE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!"

I stared at him for a moment. He cared. He didn't want me to have to fight and he really wanted to punch whoever decided that it would be me who fought.

"Even if it shouldn't be my responsibility…even if I'm just a kid… I have the power to do something. So I will."

I ran off.

(…)

General Watterson should have been looking back at this experience while getting ready to hand in his badges. He should have been begging his superiors for forgiveness, that his fatherly love had overtaken him, that all he could think about was making sure his daughter was safe and that he had forgotten about the taxpayers and _sheer common sense_.

But he wasn't.

He was being hailed as a hero by people all over America and beyond. He was the man who's love for his daughter, Lily, inadvertently saved an entire city. Every major branch of the US Defense and Security forces had either put him through a debriefing or were waiting on one.

"General Watterson."

A brunette man in a suit, apparently in his early to mid-thirties, walked in. There was an Asian woman in a pencil skirt, clearly a secretary, standing beside him.

"Special agent Robertson." He responded.

"Congratulations," the agent began, "your actions have landed you on the new committee dedicated to investigating and neutralizing the source of this…attack."

He didn't deserve such recognition. It was all an accident. He was only doing what any other sane father (with an army) would have done.

"I thought that it would have been important to bring this to your attention."

Agent Robertson dropped a manila folder on the conference desk. It was filled with laminated magazine clippings, articles, and pictures of an oddly familiar…

"Lily's been head over heels for this boy ever since he transferred to her school." He said.

"And right before he transferred to her school, he claimed to have been attacked and rescued by a girl with red hair."

_Lily doesn't know any redheads. Well, natural ones for that matter. There just aren't that many in Central City…_ he thought.

"We decided to do some investigating. It turned out the boy left out a few details."

He turned on the wall-mounted TV at the end of the room. An image of a front yard appeared on it, then there was a flash, and then the yard returned to normal. Agent Robertson pressed a button and the image was replayed in slow motion.

It was a limo. Chased down by black vortexes—the same ones that were spotted all over the city right before the attack—chased him.

"We are currently conducting an investigation as to how much of his story was truth—the part about the red-haired girl in particular—as well as why this boy was attacked."

No one said it, but they all knew what it meant.

_We think the boy either knows something or has something to do with this. Once we have our proof, we'll bring him in._

Even after the two men had left, the Asian woman remained. She grabbed her collar and felt a small lump. She smiled.

"Did you get all of that, sister?"

Miles away, a middle aged woman stared at a projector screen with Alex Skylark's image on it.

"It's a shame that we might have to hurt such a pretty face."

(…)

I was just outside of the city when I came across the first army patrol. I sighed and whispered "Aoba."

I felt tingling all over my body as the great bird appeared. I knew that my hair was red now, so I didn't check.

Komaniu leapt in my backpack and I grabbed onto Aoba's legs.

"Just high enough to stay out of site while staying under the radar." I whispered.

We flew at just the perfect height to do so. I bit back the urge to scream in joy.

I expected to see a sea of lights beneath me—like soaring _above _the stars—but all I got were a few sparse lights and a few plumes of smoke. And one very, _very_ unwelcome sight.

There was some kind black, pulsing mass in the center of the city. It was like that web, only _a lot_ bigger, probably taking up an entire city block. There was a ring of lights around it. The military didn't like the vibes that thing was giving off either, I guess. I also guessed that the giant black mass of doom was what had to be taken out to get the Krawl out of the city. One problem:

How was one girl with three and a quarter giant creatures and a sword supposed to take out whatever sort of abomination that was probably hiding inside of a giant black web that would put Venom to shame, all while avoiding the military?

I HADN'T THE SLIGHTEST FLIPPING CLUE!

**Sorry this chapter was kind of short, but it seemed like a good place to cut off, and it was a really short wait, wasn't it?**


	16. To the center of town!

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 16

Several gunshots broke through the silence. Aoba cried out. I was hit with a wave of pain and confusion—_Aoba's pain and confusion_. Yelling was coming from bellow. There was lots of clicking, engines roaring to life. Damn! The military had noticed us!

"Go higher! Faster!" I shouted.

Aoba obeyed. Then I heard a roaring in the distance.

Oh God no.

"DROP! DROP, DROP, DROP! BETWEEN THE BUILDINGS!"

Ohhh, Lord in Heaven I did NOT want to get into a dog fight. No way. Drop me in the middle of that web and make me take on whatever God-awful Eldritch Abomination was hiding in their without a strategy, but _please_, DO NOT MAKE ME TAKE ON THE MILLITARY WITH NOTHING BUT A GIANT BIRD AND A SWORD!

**(I apologize for Mari's outburst. You see, she saw **_**Pearl Harbor**_** when she was very young. She harbors no fears towards the military. It's fighting against the military that she fears. **_**And you should too**_**. Ha! Just kidding. Let's get back to the story, shall we?)**

Poor Aoba was weakened. I didn't know how healing Spectrobes worked, so I did the only thing that I could: I had him land and put him back in the Prismod. My hair and eyes didn't turn back to normal, because I brought out Zozane and had him walk by me.

I had to keep moving; my only means of knowing how to avoid the military was the birds'-eye-view that I had on the city just a moment ago, and that thing was probably already out of date. Not to mention the fact that the military might be using satellites to keep an eye on the city. It was supposed to only be a conspiracy theory that they could spot one person in a landscape like this one, but I still didn't want to take any chances.

There were lives at stake, after all. No one knew what had become of the person that owned that camera. The news station that first received the signal revealed the identities of the woman and the man that were on site in the city and had that camera. Somehow, I just knew that they were alive.

Komaniu made a sound that reminded me of yawning. He nudged my leg. Even Zozane seemed less…lightning-ish(?) than usual. I suddenly realized how tired I was. Those energy drinks were wearing off and now it was time for the slump that came after.

You know something…I wonder…

I got on Zozane. "To my house. Try and stay out of sight."

Just as I had thought, my house was still virtually untouched.

(…)

Mr. Tanner couldn't sleep. His eyes were shut and he was in his bed, but he was conscious and he couldn't tear that image out of his mind, of that intense look in Mari's eyes. A passion and dedication he only saw in one of his students before—a boy that had decided to serve his country and join the army, a boy that was currently guarding the school he had gone to years before. Such maturity was a true rarity amongst children. He had always known Mari to be one of the more respectful, mature students, but never to the extent where she'd be ready and willing to throw away the life she knew and loved for the sake of those she loved.

He admired her. He wished that he could be like her. He wished that he could help her, that he was worth something in this damned fight!

He sat up.

"Can't sleep either?" It was that doctor that had barged in to the men's examination area, Dr. Terra. "Come on then."

Mr. Tanner blinked, rather taken aback, then decided to follow her outside of the building. Lily and Keith were there, dressed like they were before the camping trip—casually, comfortably, and with backpacks full of supplies. He instantly knew what it meant.

"You two are going into the city!"

"And they want you to go with them." Dr. Terra said. "I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but I know when someone is sincere. These kids are as about as sincere as it gets."

Mr. Tanner smiled, nodded, and picked up a spare bag.

(…)

Jessica groaned. She was completely untouched by the gunk-like webbing that coated the entire block. She saw Cody, unconscious, suspended by his arms, and hung above a pack of those monsters. That variant reminded her of raptors in their posture, but they lacked eyes, and were purple with stripes.

Krawl. The man had called them Krawl.

The man!

CODY!

"Cody!" she cried.

They snarled and hissed at Jessica, but they didn't attack.

"J-Jessica?" Cody stammered. "What's going on?"

"J-Just hold on!" She frantically searched the much, looking for some sort of loose stone or pipe—anything she could use as a weapon. All she found was the camera, completely unscathed. She didn't care about the footage any more. She didn't care about landing the big scoop. All she wanted was to get her friend down from there, beat the living hell out of those Krawl, and go home.

She was ready to throw the camera, but a gloved hand grabbed her arm. It was the masked man. She became enraged and tried to slam the camera into the side of his head. He grabbed her other arm with ease.

"WHY!" Jessica screamed. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?"

The other one came up from behind her and put Jessica in a full nelson.

"I'll need your help." He said coolly.

She fell to her knees. "How can you be so calm?" She sobbed. "Why not use me like that? He's the one that can work the camera better. Please! I'll do anything! Just let him go!"

He shook his head. "This is how it will be. I need to test someone. The man is the bait. You will act as a messenger."

(…)

I awoke to Komaniu tugging my still red hair. He seemed alarmed. I was hit with a massive sense of dread. My first instinct was that the Krawl were coming, but their presence clearly became distanced, avoiding my house. They were going…south of the city.

They were going to the school!

I had to get out of the house and lead them away, fast!

(…)

"Why are we going the long way?" Lily moaned.

The trio had to skirt around the highways and into the elevated patches of forest that were scattered around Central City. The walk was long and hard. Even Lily, the most athletic member of the group, was feeling the stress.

"We have to avoid the military patrols," Keith began, "otherwise they'll send us back or even have us arrested."

"And then we'll have to find Mari." Mr. Tanner added.

Lily yawned. "How are we supposed to find her when she won't answer her phone?"

She noticed a shiny stone in a puddle, picked it up, and played with it happily.

"First we'll check her house. If she's not there then…" Keith stopped mid-sentence. He was gawking at the city, visible bellow the raised forest.

A massive wave of Krawl was on the way, the army futily trying to fight it back. They all looked at each other and agreed to make a beeline for the school, wordlessly.

"I'd like you to wait a moment before you make such a rash decision."

That voice send chills down Keith's spine.

Everyone turned around and saw Maja, with Jessica by her side. The trio didn't know their names, but it was clear that Jessica had been crying, as her eyes were red and puffy.

"Tell them what the situation is!" Maja ordered.

Jessica stood. "My name is Jessica Regalia. I'm a news reporter. My cameraman and I decided to venture into the middle of the city in order to get the big scoop a few hours ago."

Maja laughed. "Things didn't turn out so well."

"We ran into this woman," she sniffed "and her master. He's with my cameraman, Cody, holding him hostage."

"Have the Spectrobe Master be at the center of the city within the next fifteen minutes, or he'll be fed to the Krawl!" Maja cackled.

"You monster!" Lily cried. "Y-you… DIRTY B—" Lily's phone rang and she stopped.

Maja noticed how shocking the call was to Lily. "What does that sound mean?" She asked.

"It means that someone's trying to call her," Jessica answered.

"There's something special about that caller!" Maja deduced.

Lily gulped. "It's…" she looked at Jessica, _the reporter_, "the Spectrobe Master's ringtone."

"Answer it!" Maja cried. "Or the speed of that wave of Krawl will be _double _what it was before!"

The wave _had_ slowed down since the start of the conversation.

Lily was about to answer, but Keith grabbed her hand.

"We'll convince the Spectrobe Master to accept the terms of your challenge on once condition." He looked at Jessica. "Ms. Regalia will never again speak of this exchange, the Spectrobe Master, or our relationship with her, _including_ the fact that we know anything if your existence!"

Neither Lily nor Mr. Tanner objected. They knew that Keith was doing this to protect Mari.

"If you accept, I can assure you that the Spectrobe Master will rescue your friend!"

"ANYTHING!" Jessica cried. "JUST SAVE CODY!"

Keith let Lily answer the phone.

"GET EVERYONE UP AND OUT OF THERE!" Mari bellowed.

Keith took Lily's phone. "We're completely sure that the military already knows about the oncoming wave of Krawl. They should be evacuating the school as we speak."

"I can see the fight in the distance—they're getting their butts handed to them!" Mari shot back.

"LISTEN! There's a black mass in the middle of the city, isn't there?"

"Yeah."

"There's a man being held captive there by the High Krawl."

Back in the city, Mari had Zozane stop.

"What?" She breathed.

"If you don't get to that mass in the next fifteen—"

"Twelve," Maja interjected.

"Twelve minutes, he'll be fed to the Krawl."

Mari's heart began to pound. In the city, there was an innocent man being held hostage, but if she didn't fight off the Krawl heading towards the school, her family would be put into danger. On the other hand, if she went to the school, then everyone would see her. If worse came to worse, she'd wind up in jail and the Spectrobes would wind up science experiments.

But that man. He had a family. Friends. If he were to vanish, then so much sorrow would be born. There would be an entire wave of people willing to take extreme measures to fight the Krawl because of his death, and they could push for rash actions that could endanger even more innocent lives.

Save her family and possibly lose her freedom. Save the man, and possible lose her family.

"What do I do…?"

Around her neck, the Bond rings began to glow.

Far away, Lily clasped her hands together in prayer with the stone between her palms_. Let a miracle happen_ she prayed. _Let everyone be saved!_

"I want to save everyone." Mari whispered.

All of both girls' Bond Rings began to glow.

"I WANT TO SAVE EVERYON!" Mari bellowed.

Mari's Bond Rings exploded with a cool blue flame. Lily's hands were filled with a shining light. A small horse-like creature appeared. It suddenly became much larger, with a main and red eyes. It still grew after that, gaining wings and doubling in size. Everyone froze in astonishment.

Mari's voice echoed through the entire area. Even her parents heard it as they begged the soldiers to give them a few more moments to search for their daughter before evacuating. "I _WILL_ SAVE EVERYONE!"

Aoba suddenly appeared and began to glow. The Spectrobe grew in size, gained hands, and flew away. Both Aoba and the new Spectrobe shined so bright, they became blue-white silhouettes. They flew to the wave of Krawl, a spectacular arc of light following them. They blew through the Krawl, turning the monsters into dust, but leaving the soldiers unscathed. As the Krawl vanished, their light diminished, they became smaller, and returned to Mari's Prismod.

In the school, Mari's parents knew that she was safe somehow.

(…)

My red hair had been auburn since my fight with Maja, but after I was done screaming, it had become a true blazing red again.

"Put me on speaker." I said into my phone.

There was a small click.

"Listen here, High Krawl brat! I'll be at that web in two minutes or less. I'm going to go there, find that guy, _tear your Krawl monsters and their master apart_, and get back to my life. But before that last part, _I'll come after you_!"

Wordlessly, I hung up and had Zozane head towards the black mass in the city.

(…)

Back at the school, Alex had frantically been searching for Mari. He had come across her sobbing mother and eagerly agreed to help. She was his classmate—his friend—after all. But he had just seen that magnificent display of light. The Bond Ring he received from the girl, Mari had one from the same set, and it had been glowing so bright. He _knew_ she was safe somehow.

He shouldered his guitar and ran back towards the crowds of astonished people.

"He—"

A hand clamped a sweet-smelling rag over his mouth. Alex knew not to breathe in the rag, so he breathed through his nose. He looked up, kicking and thrashing and not knowing what to expect. It was a man in a suit and dark glasses that held him. Alex thrashed even harder and looked forward.

There was another man, dressed identically. He pinched Alex's nose. Alex was forced to breathe through his mouth, or choke. The blackness soon set in and Alex fell into unconsciousness. The two men loaded the boy into the back of their van and they hid in plain sight amongst the hoards of evacuees.

The first man called a special number on his blackberry.

"Target captured."

Miles away from each other, two Asian women smiled simultaneously.


	17. rage

**That last chapter was longer than I had expected it to be. I managed to get it out so fast because it was Sunday and I didn't have much to do, but I'll have to get hit by a car or something to put this story on extended hiatus. I'm having so much fun writing this! And I've gotten some **_**serious**_** inspiration for my novel!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 17

I could say that I was ready for a fight, pumped, or something else like that. But those words just didn't fit. They were too _weak_. There were no words in the English language to describe the intense ferocity that flowed through my veins. I had felt nothing like it before in my life. It was like the excited feel you get when you're at the final boss of a video game and both you and the boss are down to your last few life points, or when a championship game is at the last few seconds and the other team is a point ahead, all rolled into one, and all on speed. That's how I felt.

I wasn't entirely sure what had happened with the light and my Bond Rings back then, but I was too busy to care, to _worried_ to care. This wasn't just a race to save a life, this was a race against time.

Right after I had given my warning via cell phone, a woman (who's voice I had never heard before once in my life) gave _me_ a dire warning.

"You need to know something! If the military can't contain the Krawl by midnight, they'll be forced to send the entire area to Kingdom Come! They'll nuke Central City to keep those monsters from escaping! We had instructions from our station not to announce this until a certain time, and we only listened because the military was ready to evacuate everyone before that happened."

It was about 11:40 right now. If I didn't manage to take down those Krawl in the center of the city in the next twenty minutes, Crystal City would be wiped off the map. Countless people would lose their homes and everything they know along with them. I wasn't about to let that happen.

There was a wall of black webbing ahead of us. I took a deep breath and tried to stand upright while riding Zozane. Just a few days ago, I would have yelped and sat right back down. Just a few days ago, my home wasn't in danger of getting nuked.

I leapt forward and swung the sword in a wide arc, then kicked back and landed on Zozane again. We went right through.

As we got closer, more and more webbing covered the landscape. It seemed to pulse and glow around the clusters of Krawl that we tried to avoid. It was disgusting. To be honest, I was amazed that the area _hadn't_ been bombed yet.

My heart sank as I realized that we were deep inside one of my mom's favorite places to hang out. The shops were mostly super-expensive and weren't very popular amongst my classmates, and I hated coming here, but my mom loved the designer labels that were available. There was also one place that I even liked: a really beautiful plaza centered on a contemporary-style fountain. It made me feel sick to see that fountain, barely recognizable under a blanket of black goo.

Komaniu leapt off of Zozane. I dismounted and we all followed.

There were virtually no Krawl around, and this was unsettling. It was like that age's old cliché: _It's quiet… Too quiet…_

I walked around. Zozane even seemed to be tiptoeing. It was just so tense. Again, if this had been happening a few days ago (and if the town wasn't in danger of being blown to smithereens) I'd probably leap at the sound of every cricket. I couldn't believe how quickly I had changed.

"NYARAOO! NYARAOO!"

Komaniu was freaking out. We ran over to where he was. He was in the middle of a massive clearing, one I recognized as a big construction site for an add-on to the current shopping complex, barking in the air. The goo was stretched thin here—there were even gaps in some places. And a cute guy hanging by his wrists about fifteen feet in the air. Wait—WHAT?

"Holy crap!" OK! Hostage spotted! I called out Spikan. "Get ready to catch!" I ordered.

Spikan dashed over to the unconscious person and held his arms out while I searched around the area and found a bent metal pipe. I sharpened the edged a bit with my sword, then threw it like a Frisbee. He came down and Spikan caught him without any problems.

He began to groan.

I pulled my hood up and came over.

"W...what?"

"Are you alright?"

"GAH!"

He noticed Spikan and started to kick and thrash.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down!" I urged him. "It's OK. He's friendly—on our side!"

The man, one arm in Spikan's face and the other frantically feeling around for any kind of weapon, gawked at me for a moment. Then at Spikan. Then back at me. Then at Zozane. And then at Komaniu.

"Nyaraoo!"

"See! He wouldn't hurt a—"

"OH CRAP!"

He grabbed me by my shirt and started to run, dragging me behind him. The Spectrobes stared at me blankly, unsure of what to do. When he wouldn't listen I decided to lodge my sword in the ground. He had built up so much momentum that he tore my hoodie opened and fell on his face (and skidded for a few feet.)

I stood up. "Alright, let's try this again."

He got up, spat out some goo, and gawked at us for a moment.

"You don't understand!"

"No! _You _don't understand! As cliché as this sounds—I'm here to rescue you! You're friend send me! What was her name? Jessica!"

"Jessica sent you? Jessica's alright!" He grabbed me by my shoulders and looked over my face, apparently searching for any signs of dishonesty, but he didn't find any. "Oh thank God!" He sighed.

"She's safe. She was really worried about you, too."

A look of relief fell over his face and loosened his grip on my shoulders. "Oh thank—" he gasped—"LOOK OUT!"

He suddenly yanked me by the arm and tossed me to the ground. I immediately got up, enraged that he'd do something so stupid with neither warning nor provocation, but came to a horrific site.

A man in a cloak and mask with a completely black sword as big as mine had leapt down from out of nowhere. He'd swung the blade down, stopping just an inch above the ground. The goo began to pulsate and it had an even more ominous aura now. The man's sword was covered in Cody's blood. Cody fell to the ground, moaning in agony and lay in a pool of his own blood.

I didn't know what to think. I _didn't_ think. I just screamed. I screamed and I rushed the masked man with my sword. It wasn't a girly scream. It was more of a battle cry, but it left my throat sore and my lungs in desperate need of air nonetheless. That was a big mistake on my part. My lack of breath made me weak, and it was easy for the man to knock me back.

"Who are you?" I spat. "_Why the hell did you do that?_"

He wiped the bloodied sword on his cloak. "I didn't mean to hit him. That blow was meant for you."

"ANSWER THE FORMER FIRST!"

Never before had I been so enraged. Not when the ruder students in class responded to statements that weren't directed to them in the slightest with curses and orders to shut up; not when I see kids slacking off in class and wasting worth-while opportunities, excusing themselves with statements like "I'll just join the army" or "I don't care about this class"; not even when a girl I had barely even spoken to my entire life decided to make up a blatant lie about me disliking a student with a disability because of that disability and somehow had the gall to deny having commit an act that hurt me as well as several people she claimed to care about. None of that came even close. I wanted to tear this monster to shreds, and I honestly would have, were he not so powerful.

He managed to block several of my blows, parry my sword away, and hit me in the gut with his sword's hilt. I fell to the ground, completely taken aback. He grabbed me by my—no longer flaming red, but a darker, more intense red—hair and turned me around.

"Calm yourself and look."

Cody was alright. Bleeding, but standing, propped up on Zozane.

"It was only a flesh wound."

"You said that attack was meant for me…" I thought aloud.

Without warning, there was a massive _THUD_ and I was free. Spikan had come up behind us and whacked the freak with his tail. The cloaked man slammed into a nearby building, generating a cloud of dust.

"Zozane!" I began. "Get him out of the way!"

Zozane ducked under Cody's gut and picked him up. He leapt back, taking the man out of the fray.

"You're too kind." He was back. "It'llbe the end of you; just like before."

He raised his arm and the goo began to pulsate even more. The ground shook. Spikan growled. There were continuous thuds. Heading in our direction.

"Let's see how your valiance stands up to this."

A massive Krawl, like something out of a _Godzilla_ movie, stepped out from between the buildings. Its skin was the same color and texture as the goo. One arm was proportional to the rest of its body (I won't dare call it normal) and the other was swollen and contorted. On its head was a glowing yellow star-like symbol that I could only classify as a face. This massive beast was my opponent.


	18. Bring it

**I want to thank you guys for all the support you're giving me. You see, recently I had a little spat with a friend of mine whom had taught me a lot about writing. She told me to get lost for no apparent reason and made sure that everyone else in our clique just gave me the cold shoulder. She was always rather blunt (and by that I mean downright degrading) with my writing and she made me feel really bad sometimes. Thanks to you guys, I can fell a lot better about myself. **

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 18

Cody gawked at the ensuing battle from a distance. The creatures, the swords, the spectacular attacks. All topped off with a teenager at the helm. It was like a science fiction novel! Where was his camera? He had to get this on film!

"Here you go." Maja handed Cody his camera.

"GAH!"

Cody leapt back.

"Oh relax. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm just here to watch." She placed a black dagger to his neck. "And to make sure that you broadcast every moment of this fight so the whole world can see."

(…)

"What the crap…"

That's all that I could think of to say. I mean, what else could you think of **(that could be stated in a rated K+ fanfiction**)?

I noticed how all the goop seemed to react to him strangely. It began to pulsate and glow. It went from onyx to mauve. As the behemoth stepped closer, I had to leap up just to keep my balance on top of the goop.

It was moving!

The goops started to slide towards the beast, crawl up its legs, and conjoin at its massive left arm! It raised the arm and pointed it towards me.

"MOVE IT!" I bellowed.

Without thinking, I called Spikan back into the Prismod and ran away from the attack with Zozane. A hailstorm of the black matter was launched at us. It wasn't like water. It was hard, heavy, and dangerous. Where it hit, it left small craters in the ground. When we knew that we couldn't get away in time, I had our group stop.

"Go!" I yelled.

Zozane started to attack and I slashed with my sword for dear life. Somehow, we managed to deflect the attack, but the area around us was a total wasteland.

Then the goop started to move again. It repeated the process and went back to the monster. It was like the Krawl I had faced back when I saved Alex, but this one could recycle its ammo! Last time all I needed to do was bide my time, but that wouldn't work with this thing! Not to mention, I was short one Spectrobe. Spikan was just too slow for this fight and I had to call him back. I needed a faster Spectrobe!

The Prismod glowed and opened up again. The word _RYDRAKE_ appeared in all caps. Just like before, a blast of light came out of the Prismod along with hexagonal lights. A new Spectrobe, a blue one kind of like a horse only covered in white lightning patterns and it had wings. It let out an inspiring roar.

"Are you fast?"

Rydrake actually nodded.

"Good."

I could feel it. Our odds had just seriously increased. It looked like the giant Krawl was going to stun us by shaking the ground with its massive fist, but I didn't care. This wasn't a video game. We could overcome it. We bolted forward, ready to attack.

And the black matter shot up from the ground and impaled the Spectrobes.

(…)

"Sister."

The middle-aged woman had been running through reports on Alex Skylark's capture and gazing at her glowing Bond Ring when her inside-woman walked in.

"There's something you need to see."

The inside-woman pressed a button and a screen came down from the roof. Several news images, all with the word _LIVE_ somewhere on them appeared. Most of them depicted people watching a battle between a massive monster, several strange creatures, and a girl with red hair. The largest image didn't depict people watching this on screen, but this battle itself.

"The original broadcast—shown in the center—is the original and has been traced to the middle of Central City. As you can see," she pressed a button and charts appeared next to every video, the ones next to the center image seeming to be the largest, and "it has garnered more attention than any other broadcast."

"How are the people reacting to this?"

They both paused.

She pressed a button and more charts overtook the screen. "The number of people logging into websites, surfing Google, talking on their cell phones, and doing anything else that doesn't involve tuning into the news, has all drastically dropped. If you look more closely at the feed of places like Time Square and the jumbotron in Shibuya Tokyo you'll see that some people are remaining completely still whilst others cheer the red-haired girl—"

"Oh my."

She looked to the screen and saw the smaller creatures get impaled by black spires that appeared suddenly from the ground, and the girl scream in pain."

"—on."

(…)

The pain was excruciating. I wanted to collapse and die. That's how bad it was. But it wasn't my pain. It was the Spectrobes' pain. And it was my fault they were feeling it. If I hadn't been so hasty and had waited to figure out the Krawl's attack pattern, this wouldn't be happening. They were hurting and it was my fault.

My hair became auburn again as we all collapsed. The ground was cool, like a pillow. My vision blurred, but I could make out a dark figure stepping towards us. As he got closer, I saw that he was the man in the mask and cloak. He grabbed me by my hair and held my face to his.

"That's it?"

I grit my teeth and grunted when the pain suddenly became a quick stabbing and then slowly began to subside.

"Well what do we have here?"

He turned me and showed me that the Spectrobes were standing.

"They never give up on their Master." He turned to the massive Krawl behind us. "Finish it!"

The Krawl stepped towards them, and the Spectrobes stood their ground.

"No…" I sobbed. "Just run! Get away from here!"

They looked away, but then returned to their previous stances.

"That is the one order they will disobey," he began, "the order to abandon their Master."

The Krawl stepped closer. I heard a weird sound, some kind of roar, but I was too busy trying to will the Spectrobes to run away to care.

The Krawl charged, and so did the Spectrobes.

It was a massacre.

They were crushed, kicked back, slammed into the ground, completely thrashed, and never failed to get up again. I felt every hit and screamed with every blow. At one point, I spat out blood.

"Your body feels their pain and acknowledges their injuries."

"Listen…" I grunted.

The Spectrobes were hit again.

"The military…at midnight—it's going to…"

"Wipe this city off the map. I know. And I don't care. You humans have a habit of destroying the things you claim to care for, and I enjoy watching it happen."

Then I felt it—an unbelievable rage, a fighting force. I wanted nothing more than to tear this monster limb from limb. I began to thrash, ignoring the outrageous pain. I kicked down, jerked my entire upper body forward, and actually managed to flip the man over with my hair. While he was still in the air, I pulled a metal pipe out of the ground. When he landed on his back, I lodged it in his abdomen. I ran towards the Spectrobes. They began to roar. They leapt forward. This time, rather than going for the Krawl's upper body, they aimed for its legs.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

As the monstrous Krawl began to tumble to the ground, I bolted towards it and drew my sword. As it fell, I lifted the blade into the strange mark that seemed to act as its face.

Wordlessly, I stepped out from under it, as if in a trance.

"That's what my valor does for me," I spat, "saves lives. Gets the job done. Sends alien monsters to Kingdom Come."

"Impressive."

Maja stood behind the man. He yanked the pipe out of his gut. It was covered in black ooze.

"M-Master Krux!" Maja stammered. "Your life fluids! They're not supposed to be like that!"

"Because these aren't my life fluids. This isn't my body—it's not me."

I gawked at him. He began to fade away into dust, the same as the dead Krawl behind me and the black residue that covered the entire area.

"My name is Krux," he began, "and this was a test of your strength. You did pass, albeit barely."

"Why just a test?" I groaned. "Why not just go all out the first time 'round and finish us off without dealing with a defeat?"

"Because I didn't think that we'd _need_ to go all out. It was a mistake on my part. But hear me out." The fading fake-me-out stepped away from Maja. "What you saw was merely a fraction of what the Krawl can really do."

"So be it." I said.

"I beg your pardon?" Maja chuckled. "You've been told that the beast that beat you within an inch of your death is actually a flawed copy, unbelievably weaker than the real thing—and that the real thing is getting ready to come and finish the job."

"You know nothing!" I spat. "Since the dawn of our existence—whether you believe that it was the first two humans created by God or apes that learned how to use stone tools—we've been changing. Adapting. Becoming stronger. We've always been faced with challenges, whether they be enemies or diseases. You say that you're here to wipe us out for whatever reason; I say go ahead. Give us a common enemy. It doesn't have to be behind a Spectrobe Master."

I stepped close to him, ignoring the fiery red that my hair was becoming. It almost glowed like an ember.

"We'll unite against our enemies. And we'll wipe them—_you_—from existence. Quit while you're ahead. Don't underestimate humanity."

He was almost completely gone, and his words were like a whisper.

"I accept your challenge."

I collapsed as the last bit of black faded along with Krux.

(…)

Maja gawked at the unconscious Spectrobe Master. The brat had just taken down one of the best clones of Krux Maja had ever seen. And had just collapsed. Right there. Here Spectrobes had already vanished into her Prismod, pushed to their limit. She was completely defenseless. Should she kill her?

No.

Every now and then, Krux came across an enemy that he liked and he became downright enraged when one of the other High Krawl snatched away the opportunity to defeat said nemesis. They had lost a few of their own that way. Take her in alive?

Yes.

That was Krux's original intention. He'd be pleased. If he wanted to fight her or finish her off himself, arranging such a match would be a simple matter—even _easier_ if she were to be in their custody.

Maja leaned down to grab the little Master by her shirt collar. There was something dangling on a chain—rings, she believed—but Maja paid no notice.

Big mistake.

The rings released a burst of hidden energy, severely injuring her arm. Maja hissed and saw that they had formed an energy barrier around the girl.

She cursed and walked away as the sun began to rise. It would have been a hassle to break through that bubble anyway.


	19. Oh crap

**OK! I know that you guys want some answers, so I'll try and get to them straight away this time. BTW, anyone heard of this book called **_**Otherland**_**? I read a summary of it online and it sounds cool. Is the actual book as good?**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 19

There was nothing. Nothing above me, nothing around me, and nothing below me. Yet somehow, I lay on what felt like solid ground, arms and legs outstretched. My hair was still bright red.

"Is this heaven?"

A chuckle came from beside me. I looked over. There was another person. He had orange hair. His clothes were really weird; he had some kind of black and gray coat on with huge shoulder pads and matching boots and gloves, like some kind of futuristic uniform. He was pretty young—17 or 18 tops.

"Sorry, but this isn't heaven," he said.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God."

"Did you want to do somewhere else?"

"No. But there's still a lot I want to do. I'm only sixteen."

He laughed.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I was still in training when I was sixteen."

"Training for what?" I asked.

"That's ancient history. Right now, I'm here to explain a few things." He sat down next to me. "Now, don't get too hasty. I can only tell you what I know, and you're gonna have to figure some things out on your own."

I groaned. "Part of my 'hero's journey,' or something? And you don't even know everything! You're the lamest ubiquitous guide I've ever seen."

He kept on gazing into the nothingness, completely ignoring my jeer. "For now, you only get one answer to one question. So choose wisely."

I sighed and lifted up my arm—the arm with the Prismod on it. "How did I get that new Spectrobe?"

He responded by causing a few crystals to materialize over his open palm. One was red, another green, and another yellow. The red one became a Komaniu; the green one turned into a baby Spikan; the yellow one into a baby Zozane.

"Those are the Spectrobes in their stasis mode. They're been asleep for ages, and they will only awaken when in the presence of their Master."

"That doesn't make sense!" I said. "People love to take stones like that and turn them into jewelry!"

"It's only just recently that they've become so flashy—they're normally like this." The three Spectrobes became rocks. "They awaken when their Master appears. Their master appears when their world is in danger."

"But…why am I their master?"

"I can't answer that question."

"Why's that?"

"Because I don't know."

(…)

"Honey. Honey, wake up."

I groaned. For a minute, my vision blurred. My wrist stung. My eyelids felt heavy. _The inside of my nose_ itched.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was staring up at a tacky tiled roof, the sort one could only find in older public buildings. There was an IV drip in my arm. I had clearly been out cold for a bit. There was an oxygen tube in my nose. I was in a hospital. Most-likely critical care.

"Honey. Are you awake?"

"Mom…?" I groaned.

She started to hyperventilate and gave me a gentle hug.

"What happened?"

She started to sob. "You had gone to the bathroom when the military started to evacuate. The only open room was upstairs. In the madness, you ran down the stairs and fell. You went through a window. But your friends found you before everyone pulled out."

A lot of it didn't make sense. Then I remembered that I had three friends that were in on everything. Then a lot of it fell into place. Then I remembered that little bit that was still bothering me.

"THE CITY!" I gasped, sitting up in my bed. I cringed and sat back down again. I was _seriously _sore.

"The city's fine." She said. "You've been out cold for over a week. Most of the damage was minimal. A satellite managed to snap some pictures of the plaza right after the fight. The black stuff is vanishing and most of the town should be let out of quarantine any day now."

"The fight? A week?" I gasped.

"Oh I can't believe you missed it! You would have loved it! But don't worry. The entire thing was broadcast live! They're doing a rebroadcast of the entire fight right now as part of a CNN exclusive."

Mom turned on the wall-mounted TV. And there I was. Kicking Krawl butt. The broadcast became a split screen and—oh my God—simultaneous footage of people watching the battle at Time Square! I got hit and everyone cringed. When it came to the part where the Krawl launched those spikes from under the ground and Krux grabbed me. When I started to scream and the Spectrobes kept on fighting, they showed another simultaneous newscast of someone figuring out that we were linked somehow. Some of the people in Time Square covered their eyes and a few kids started to cry. For me. Then we got up and got the upper hand again and the crowd started to go wild. Then Maja explained how my fight was only the beginning. Everyone went silent.

And I started my speech. I talked about how awesome humans were. How we could never be stopped.

"Don't underestimate humanity."

The crowd went wild. People started to scream and to chant. They seemed overjoyed, inspired, and all because of me—of what _I_ said. The whole world had seen me. The whole world loves me.

The newscaster came on and started to explain what happened afterwards. The president gave an announcement to the public that he was dedicating a special taskforce—unnamed as of yet—to study the origins of the Krawl. (They knew what to call them?) He was meeting with world leaders right now to discuss what to do if a full-scale invasion happens. The residents of the City would be let back in as soon as they knew that there was no immediate danger in doing so, and they finally went live to a scene in front of the White House.

Protestors.

Why were they protesting? Shouldn't they be happy, celebrating? You'd figure that this would be a pretty good time to sing I'm Proud to be an American. I mean, it _was_ an American that essentially defeated an alien invasion _in_ America.

"I don't blame them for not giving up." My mom said. "They have every right to be angry, but I'm not sure if the President actually has any say in the matter."

"What matter?"

My mom pointed at the TV when their man-on-the-scene started to speak with the protestors. I didn't pay attention to what they were saying. The world seemed to come crashing down around me when I saw the sign.

_LIFT THE ARREST WARRANT! HEROES DON'T DESSERVE JAIL!_

There was a warrant out. For my arrest.

**Yeah. Short chapter and a cliffhanger, but I answered one of the questions that have been bothering you guys, and I managed to give Rallen a cameo. BTW, I'm considering that Krawlers thing. I think it might be something cool to throw in during the final battle. **


	20. I know where to go

**OH MY GOSH! I'm typing this at my school library and I just got this book that I was so pumped about but didn't have the money to get because it was a massive hardcover, but now I have it! HAHAHA! Now I just have to finish it before the end of the school year. :D**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**WARNING! MINOR SPOILERS FOR **_**HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS**_**! **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 20

Alex held his knees to his chest and looked up. There was one florescent bulb in the room. He sat on a bench with a cheap mattress, snow white sheets, and no pillow. There was one door. Locked.

Why was he even here?

When his songs first started to hit several hundred thousand-plus downloads, he was warned: watch out for crazed fans, kidnappers looking to extort money from said fans, stalkers, the whole shebang. But this didn't feel like that sort of kidnapping. It was too precise, too well-planned. This was the kind of thing he'd expect in an _Alex Rider_ novel, not the life of an up-and-coming male singer.

He sighed and looked at his wrist. He'd kept the accessory the red-haired girl dropped with him every day since. Every time he looked at it, he could see her red hair and otherworldly eyes. When he started to see her in his dreams, he feared that he was becoming obsessed, but he didn't mind seeing her either. She was a little different in his dreams than from when he actually saw her, though. When he saw her in his dreams, her hair was an even brighter flaming red than from before—it glowed and embers would fly off of it, like an actual flame.

The door came open. Alex silently cursed at himself for not waiting by the door the entire time, waiting to run out.

An Asian woman in a pencil skirt and an expensive-looking polyester blouse walked in. She was holding an iPad and even had the gall to smile at him.

"Hello, Alex…" She looked at her iPad, "Skylark, is it?"

Alex responded by scowling at her.

"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here. Rest assured, you'll be taken care of and released as soon as we have no more use for you."

"And how do you intend on using me, might I ask?"

"We want to know about those monsters that attacked Central City recently. We have reason to believe that you were attacked by them before this happened. Do you know why?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

No way was he selling the red-haired girl out to this crazy woman.

She responded by pressing a few things on her iPad. She then showed him footage of his limousine being chased by that black vortex from before. Then the red-haired girl with her creatures came by.

Well that didn't look good.

"Do you know this girl?"

"Sorry. No."

"Oh really? Because the entire world would say otherwise."

The woman showed Alex an amazing battle between her and a massive monster—that had been deemed 'Krawl' apparently. She gave an amazing speech about how humanity would never fall to the monsters.

"This footage was broadcast live around the world soon after the school was evacuated, but just in time for the evacuees to see it themselves."

HE'D MISSED THE ENTIRE THING!

"Is there anything you can tell us about her?"

Alex shook his head.

"Well I believe you."

He stared at her, surprised. "R-really?"

"The problem is that my sister doesn't. She's the one that had her men bring you here and she doesn't believe in coincidences, you see, and we're in a position to make a large profit if we can learn anything about the Krawl. You're not leaving here until she gets what she wants."

"And what does she want?" Alex asked.

The woman's retained a straight face as she backhanded Alex across the face, knocking him to the ground.

She maintained a clam, polite voice. "I already told you, you little brat: information on that girl, or the reason why the Krawl chose to attack you—anything that could fall under the two."

Alex was completely flabbergasted. His only response was to touch his throbbing cheek.

The woman sighed and pouted. "Take him away boys."

The two men in suits came in and hauled him off of his feet and cuffed his hands behind his back.

"Wait—what are you doing?" He protested.

"Well it seems that you don't know anything, so we're going to have to run a few tests. Nothing to worry about really. We'll make sure that you don't die."

Somehow that didn't seem very reassuring.

(…)

School. It was just so… surreal. The feeling of stepping (or limping, in my case) into the building just didn't feel normal—not after all that insanity. I pretty much saved my home town off of the map, people all over the world were talking about me, and here I was, doing something every American teenager does, as if nothing were amiss.

I couldn't enjoy it.

I could barely focus in class. I drowned out everyone's conversations about my red-haired persona. My heart's pounding seemed to echo in my head, making it impossible to focus on the math equations I normally found simple enough to do while barely even thinking. I was always looking over my shoulder, jumping at the sight of the mere school security guard. I was on edge, completely adrenaline high. I was ready to— 

"Mari!"

"GAH!"

I nearly whacked Lily in the face with my text books when she came up to me.

"Take it easy," Gale said, coming up right behind her.

"How can I?" I hissed. We were in the middle of chemistry, all sitting in the second row from the back. I normally preferred the front, but moved back here with my newfound friends. Even though this was a science class, we were pretty much doing crazy math problems that somehow qualified as scientific calculations.

"You just have to. You're acting suspicious."

"I can't!" I leaned towards him. "I don't know how criminals do it because I am _freaking out_, man!"

"Easy," he reassured me.

"Mari!"

Someone burst through the door.

"GAH!" I ducked under my desk, forgetting that my right arm was in a sling."Oooow…" I moaned.

"Jeeze. Just wanted to tell you the bathroom was free."

Damn you_ only-one-student-in-the-bathroom-at-once_ rule… Now everyone was starting at me. I felt around for something that would be a viable excuse. There happened to be a penny under my desk.

"Ha…found it." I said weakly.

Lily hid in her text book. Gale shook his head. I shuffled back into my seat, mentally screaming for the class to stop gawking at me.

"Keith, Lily, Mari. Please meet me during lunch," Mr. Tanner groaned.

(…)

"So how did things go?"

The two Asian women were completely identical. They were in the office, looking at the projector again.

"Not well. It seems that Alex doesn't know much. I had him sent to the med lab to see if we could find any abnormalities that could serve as an explanation."

"Well I think that we might have something we can use," the woman sitting at the desk said. She pressed a few buttons and an image of another young man appeared on the projector screen.

"Sister, you're starting to scare me."

"It's not the fact that he's young—take a closer look."

She did just that. The boy's name was Keith. He was standing next to Alex, laughing with two girls, in the picture.

"You want to threaten this boy in order to force any information Alex might be holding back out, I presume?"

"That's plan B."

"I beg your pardon."

The woman at the desk pressed a button again. Several blocks of text appeared around Keith's picture.

"He's descended from a certain Native American clan that spoke legends of a flaming-haired hero that would fight of creatures of darkness with her beings of light."

The other woman smiled. "You really _don't_ believe in coincidences, do you, sister?"

The woman at the desk shook her head.

(…)

"So…why are we here?" Lily asked.

"I'm not too sure myself." I said.

"Mr. Tanner seemed a bit concerned." Keith added.

"Think it has anything to do with the Specs?" Lily asked.

'Specs' had essentially become out code-word for 'Spectrobes.' The world knew about the Krawl, and we weren't going to gamble on the rumors flying around—not with a reward for information leading to my capture floating around out there. Before we could begin to debate on whether we'd need to use that word more today, a woman in a business suit walked in. She adjusted her stylish glasses and took a seat at the teacher's desk, directly before us. My heart skipped a beat when a police officer walked in behind her.

I wanted to avert my gaze, but that never looked good. I wanted to stare, but that never looked good. WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?

"Hello." She said.

"Hi!" Lily beamed.

"I'm Alex Skylark's manager. You three had become rather close to him recently." She sighed. "I'm going to be rather blunt with this. Alex has gone missing."

My pulse quickened, but not because I was afraid that we were about to get busted, but because I was concerned. What had happened to Alex?

"Since when?" Keith asked.

"Since the evacuation of the school."

I was astonished. "And you choose _now_ to come to us about this? It's been weeks!"

"We didn't want any of this getting out to the media, so we chose to keep the investigation as under-wraps as possible until we realized that we weren't getting anywhere." The police officer explained.

"So you came to us for information." Lily deduced.

"Sorry, but that was the last time we saw him, too." Keith said solemnly.

The manager rubbed her temples and spoke to the police officer.

The officer asked, "Are you sure that was the last time you saw him?"

"Positive. I'm sure that you know about how we came across Mari during the evacuation. She can vouch for us."

Keith almost had _me_ convinced for a minute. "I—uh—yeah."

The questioning went on for a little bit, but they soon realized that we didn't know anything and let us go home. We all decided to meet up at my house and openly talk about the Spectrobes without using any code words in safety. My house was within walking distance of my school, but I didn't generally walk because I wanted to get as much sleep as possible, and it was boring (and dangerous—in my parents' opinion, that is) to walk home on my own. I'd been doing it a lot more recently, though. Keith offered to carry some of my books since I was still injured.

"So…" Lily said with an excited smirk on her face.

Keith let out a small groan. He knew that Lily's smirk meant that she had an idea—one that our parents definitely wouldn't be alright with.

"So, what?" I asked.

"What are we going to do about it?"

"About what—oh."

I groaned too.

Lily threw her arms in the air. "I mean, come on! We _have_ to do something!"

"No, Lily. We don't." I said.

"You can't be serious. I mean—you have to! In love with your alternate ego or not—we have to! Personally, I think the crush is even more of a reason to help him."

"Why is that?" I sighed.

Lily pouted. "Because you're a superhero! Don't try to say that you never watched a superhero cartoon as a kid. Whenever something happens to one of the hero's friends, the hero always gets involved."

I stopped but didn't respond. The superhero comment had caught me off guard.

"Lily. This isn't a cartoon. Alex's disappearance is the police's business, not ours. Right now, we have to be ready for another Krawl attack. There's a big chance that next time they might attack globally—"

"I cannot believe you two!" She cried. "Don't you even _care_ about him?"

Keith stepped towards her. "Lily. Don't turn this into something that it isn't."

I frowned. "Of course we're upset that Alex is missing, but there's nothing we can do."

"Yes there is! You have powers! You can save him!" She shouted.

"Lily, I don't even know where to begin, much less where he is!" I shouted back.

I saw tears on her face. Lily turned around and ran away. Keith groaned and chased after her.

"Just wait here!" He shouted back at me.

Yeeeea—no. I limped after them. Ugh. Friends were nice, but sometimes I wished that I could go back to 'doesn't have a clique' status.

(…)

Keith ran after Lily. They'd entered a pretty empty area that was still being reconstructed after everything that had transpired a few weeks ago. The workers were apparently on break, so no one stopped them. Despite Lily's superior speed, Keith eventually managed to catch up to her and grab her by the wrist.

"What are you doing?" He gasped.

"Just leave me alone!" She sobbed.

Keith pulled her close. "Something's bothering you. Spill."

Lily wiped her nose and choked back her tears. "It's…it's like… I'm Ronald Weasley!"

"What?"

"I can't do anything! The only point to me knowing anything is just so that I can be friends with the _real_ hero."

He sighed and gave her a hug and let her cry. _That_ was the problem. "You felt that if you could convince Mari to do something to help Alex that you'd be doing your part."

"I just don't want to be useless!"

Keith let her sob into his chest. "You're not useless."

"I'm just moral support!"

"You're more than that."

"I'm just a Ron!"

"Ron managed to save Harry from drowning _and_ destroy one of the shards of Volermord's power."

Lily wiped the tears out of her eyes and stepped back. "Thank—LOOK OUT!"

(…)

Ugh. Why couldn't accelerated healing come with the Spectrobes? That would have been very appreciated.

I last saw Keith leap into a construction site. Right over a fence that Lily had somehow found a way around. Being in the state that I was in, I had to limp my way around instead of just climbing over it. All whilst avoiding the construction workers.

I had just managed to find a way in when I heard Lily scream.

I cursed and picked up the pace. My crutch got stuck in the gravel two times in half as many minutes, but I still kept going. When it came to cheerleaders there were MANY different screams, but the _I'm-truly-afraid-for-my-life_ scream was rare and unmistakable.

I found them in a wide clearing, made completely of unpaved dirt. There were a few abandoned construction tools strewn about and half the area was rounded by a fence; the other half by the building that was being rebuilt. In the center of the area were four people: Lily, Keith, and two men in suits and sunglasses.

Lily was screaming while one man tried to hold her down. Keith was in the other man's arms, along with a still-sparking stun gun.

"There's another kid here!" One shouted at me.

Another man appeared with a stun gun and bolted towards me.

Oh crap.

I waited until the last possible second and then stepped out of the way. The man had already built up a lot of momentum, so he couldn't stop. He fell to the ground and dropped his weapon. It slid towards me. When he managed to scramble to his feet and went after his weapon (and me) I heeled him in the face.

"You can't even handle a kid with a broken leg?" His accomplice cried.

"MARI!" Lily shouted. She was kicking and thrashing and refused to give up.

I felt tingling from the Prismod. I ignored my hair—I already knew what it looked like.

"Let them go." I said. "Now."

The two men gawked at me. "It's her!" One said.

"I could have sworn that she had black hair just two seconds ago!" The other said.

Lily took advantage of how dumbfounded they were and elbowed the man holding her in the groin. He fell to his knees. The other one made a dive for her, but she leapt away and came towards me.

"Don't get help." I told her.

"But—" She stammered.

"They've seen too much."

The Prismod was in the sling, so that would keep the men from learning any more than they already did. Everyone in the world seemed to assume that the mysterious hero that vanquished the Krawl from Central City was a natural redhead. If word got out that she could bounce between brunette and redhead, then I could be in trouble. If word got out that she kept an odd bracelet with her at all times, then I'd be in _real _trouble. But thankfully, to my assailants, it would look like I had drawn a BFS out of nowhere.

"Drop the kid." I warned.

"Wasn't the boss interested in her, too?"

"First a singer, now a superhero." The other responded.

My heart leapt. These guys had something to do with Alex's disappearance!

"Think she'll pay us extra?"

One man slung Keith, limp and unconscious, over his shoulder. "Even if she's not interested, there's a hell of a lot of cash up for anyone that can turn that girl in! PLUS the pay for this kid!"

"You bag him while I take her!"

People like this sickened me. They didn't care. No matter what they did, who they hurt, or what happened, they just didn't care. All they wanted was their pay. So long as that happened, they wouldn't care if this entire planet were to go to hell. All they wanted was to live a disgusting life, no matter the cost to others.

I became nauseous with anger, with hatred. I wanted to kill them. But in the end, I used the back of my blade and merely knocked them out. Neither of them reacted, because I was too fast. When it was all over, I looked at Lily.

"I know where to start now."


	21. New Enemy! The Trung Sisters!

**I didn't manage to finish that book before the school library's deadline **

**Oh, and another thing. Updates might not be as fast as you'd expect them to be this summer. My family plans on traveling a lot and I don't have my own laptop. I'll try and work when I can but you can expect several week waits starting in July. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 21

I looked at the three men, all packed into a corner. They'd lost their sunglasses at some point, revealing dark, emotionless eyes. Even when I waved my sword at them, they hardly flinched. Keith had searched them. It turned out that one even had a silencer pistol on him, but most of their weapons qualified as nonlethal—tasers and mace, mostly. Even without confessions, anyone could tell that these men were professionals sent to capture, not to kill.

I pointed my sword at the middle man. "You mentioned something about a singer."

"The only reason professionals like you would care about someone like that is if someone paid you to 'nab said singer!" Lily deduced.

"Who sent you?" Keith demanded.

They were silent.

Lily pulled out her cell phone. "I'm calling the police."

One of them cursed.

Keith grabbed Lily's phone. "Wait." He looked back at the men. "I believe that we can come to an agreement here."

I gave him a _what-are-you-doing?_ Look.

"In your line of work, I doubt that you'll be able to get any jobs when word gets out that you were taken down by a teenage girl, am I right?"

Another man gritted his teeth.

"If you tell us who sent you then we'll forget any of this ever happened."

"WHAT?" Lily cried.

"_Are you insane?"_ I hissed.

"This may be our only chance to get a solid lead on Alex's location." I explained.

Grudgingly, Lily and I went along with Keith's evil plan.

"You know, some hired guns are honorable people that would never sell out their employers for a better deal." One said.

I winced.

"We're not those kinds of hired guns." Another responded.

They handed us a business card.

_Trung Sisters Incorporated_

"That's our employers' calling card. The co-presidents were the ones that arranged the entire thing. They're the ones you want."

"Looks like we're going to be spending a good long while on Google tonight." Keith sighed.

(…)

_The Trung sisters were born in a rural Vietnamese village, into a __military__ family, and led a rebellion against Chinese occupation of Vietnam in ancient times. According to legend, they managed to kill a tiger and wrote their call to arms on its pelt._

"I'm pretty sure that these sisters are dead." Lily announced.

"And I'm pretty sure that these aren't the Trung sisters we're looking for."

"No. They're not. I decided to see what we'd get if we left out the 'incorporated,' but I guess it was a bad idea."

We were back at my house, in my room, researching the tip those men had given us. I still felt funny about letting those jerks go, but I was a woman of my word, and one even agreed to change his policy so that he'd never accept a job that could wind up hurting a kid.

Keith added "incorporated" into the search. "Let's see what we get when we add that last part in."

He pressed enter.

One of the first results was a logo of two female white tigers (don't ask me how I can tell—they way that they were drawn just made them look more feminine) standing on top of a much larger male tiger. That was dead. The image was encompassed by an ornate ring that had that same look that always seemed to be associated with Asian nations.

"It's a research group that seems to work in all areas," Keith told us.

"Wait a second," I told him, "go back to the search results page. I think I saw something."

He did so.

"Click on the fourth link."

It was a news article.

"Human rights violations… Come claim kidnapping and extortion!" Lily breathed.

Keith's eyes widened as he read. "Trung Sisters Incorporated has been accused of violating international law…over eight times in just as many years. The two sisters at the head of the company are said to exhibit signs of insomnia, megalomania, and possibly even sadism."

Lily gulped.

"Keep on reading," I said.

"Some claim to have evidence that they've been working on biological weaponry and a genetically engineered super soldier."

"What the crap?" Lily blurted out.

"This is starting to sound like a James Patterson novel."

"The company has never been pinned due to their large funds, lack of a position in the public, eye, political connections, and favoritism amongst some feminist movements for being a company based in China and Korea—patriarchal societies—and being headed by two women."

There was a link that lead to recent news on the company.

Lily gasped. "Trung Sisters Incorporated announces that it's privately investigating a lead on the mysterious red-haired woman and the Krawl themselves…!"

"Humans Rights and Environmental groups currently investigating TSI have reported increased activity since—" I covered my mouth in shock—"the same day Crystal City High School was evacuated due to the Krawl attack!"

"The same day Alex vanished!" I exclaimed.

"And look at this." Keith clicked on another link and pointed at the screen. It was a picture of a building in the nearest big city, like a twenty minute drive away. "They just bought this complex in the next town over."

Lily gulped. "So we're…"

"Going to break in." I said.


	22. The Plan

**OK. This is gonna be tough. I'm writing this via my iPod right now. My sister's laptop doesn't have Microsoft word on it, so I figured that I could write the fiction on an e-mail, send it to myself, then use an old document to upload it. **

**(In other words, I'm going through a very tedious process to shorten your wait for an update by two weeks.) Formatting's gonna be a little bit different because of that, but you're still getting the chapter. **

Spectrobes: Legends

Chapter 22

I stepped off the bus and looked around. We weren't in Central City anymore. My home town was an awkward combination between office buildings, a few suburban neighborhoods, and a couple patches of downtown-like areas in-between. It was an odd hodgepodge of American life that somehow worked and felt comfortable. Almost everything was within biking distance of everything else.

The home of TSI's new HQ was nothing like that.

We were in the next city over, Wellington. The name rang of housing developments and shopping centers, but it was more like Washington DC or Boston, filled with modern buildings and small parks scattered about. It was surprisingly picturesque.

Before coming here, we'd gone to Mr. Tanner and told him our suspicions about the Trung Sisters. He then arranged a small outing for the "science club" to go to Wellington and frequent the local colleges' science labs and several museums in an overnight outing.

We were playing the innocent act, checking into a hotel and gossiping with each other.

"What's our room going to be like?" Lily asked.

I winced. Lily's voice was jerky and even more high-pitched that usual. She was breathing heavily. Hey, I was nervous too, but if you have something suspicious to say, don't say anything at all.

"Who even paid for this?" She whispered.

I shouldered my backpack and walked over to the elevators. "To be honest, I don't know."

"Was it you, Mr. Tanner?" Lily asked.

"Our generous benefactor is a friend of Keith's." He answered.

We both looked over at him. "My father." he said.

I don't think Lily or Mr. Tanner noticed, but Keith seemed to cringe a little when he said "father."

"That's right!" Lily beamed. "The camp counselor was your uncle. Why's th-"

I gently elbowed Lily in the gut, just hard enough to get her attention, and then gave her a look. She realized what I was saying and changed the subject.

"I see that you guys have finally arrived."

I dropped my bag and gaped at the woman standing in front of the elevator.

Dr. Terra!

"What's she doing here?" I asked.

"She knows about the Spectrobes. She helped us get out of the school unnoticed. We can trust her." Mr. Tanner explained.

"Why wasn't I ever told about this new edition to the group?" I wondered.

"You never asked." Keith responded.

(...)

Alex grunted as he tried to shake the handcuffs off. His arms were restrained behind his back and he was blindfolded. A large hand shoved him forward, ripped the blindfold off, and slammed a door shut without a word.

He looked around. He was in a featureless room. There were a few florescent lights built into the roof to provide light, a pair of sliding doors on the other side of the room, and that was it.

"Why bring me here?" he wondered.

He thought about using the double doors, but it was safe to assume that they were locked.

Then the doors came open.

Alex was about to bolt Towards them, but he stopped less than three steps into his run. A monstrous purple-and-black beast stepped through. It looked sort of like a raptor, with it's long legs and small arms, but it had no eyes and was covered in black stripes. It was also injured, covered in several gashes and bleeding an unsettling black liquid.

He pounded against the door, begging for someone to open it and get him out of there, but mo one came.

Alex felt tears stream down his face as the Krawl stepped towards him.

When he screamed, it slammed against a clear wall.

"Plexiglass!" he thought.

Over twenty stories above him, the Trung sisters stared at the video feed of Alex's ordeal. Tue younger sister smiled.

"This is interesting. The Krawl reacted twice as fast as with the other test subjects. What do you think, Ae-cha?"

"This is an interesting development, Ae-young. Our previous tests show that the Krawl are the most aggressive towards humans, but every other test showed that no variable seemed to affect their rate of attack."

"Perhaps it was his contact with the red-haired girl?"

"That is a distict possibility, but normal logic would say that such an effect would have worn off at this point.

"Does normal logic apply to shadowy creatures from outer space invading our planet?"

"Good point. To be honest, since the other boy's capture failed, I believe that our only hope for any real answers is that boy's flaming-haired idol coming to his rescue."

"Too bad, dear sister. No one's coming to save him."

(...)

"We're going to save Alex Skylark!" I announced.

I could see Lily struggle to bite back a snarky comment.

We were in a surprisingly large hotel suite that featured both a living room and a bed room with two large beds for us. (The couch in the living room was also a pullout bed.)

Dr. Terra seemed skeptical. "And how do you know this?"

Keith explained our findings from the other day.

"Normally I'd say that there are many companies out there that have questionable business practices, but what those thugs said can't be ignored."

She turned to Lily and she seemed to automatically know what Dr. Terra wanted her to do. They went to the table and opened up a pair of laptops, both of which were connected to several wires that led into a large briefcase with a thick chord sticking out of the back, going into the wall.

Dr. Terra turned toward us as Lily started to type on the laptop.

"Most of the TSI facilities are virtually impregnable, but they bought this one from a company that has more reasonable security policy and started to beef it up. It's still shaky and there are a few blind spots. The building's layout can be purchased online."

Lily picked up her laptop and showed us a 3d blueprint of the TSI complex. "I took the blueprints and generated this 3d image with then."

"I never took you for the... Computer expert... Type." My Tanner said weakly.

"Lily's the top student in our digital design class. She helped design the school website." I said.

Keith raised his arms. "Wait a minute. You mean to say that Lily is essentially the team hacker?"

"Pretty much." Dr. Terra said with a laugh.

Mr. Tanner scratched his head. "That I did not see coming."

Dr. Terra turned back to her laptop. "So here's the main focal point of our plans: Mari will use the Soectrobes as little as possible."

Everyone stared at me, most likely expecting loud protests and immature demands to be able to use my monstrous friends.

"Meh. I saw that coming." I said.

Lily giggled.

Dr. Terra continued. "There's supposed to be a computer room in the very center of the building. This room acts as the main focal point of all their transactions and interactions. We thought about hacking into there in order to get the information we need, but it's on an isolated network: we can't get in."

"So you want mento do something that will get you in." I concluded.

"You're going to use Aoba fondly over the building and get in where the security is the most relaxed: the roof." She continued.

Mr. Tanner smiled. "It's safe to assume that they're not expecting an aerial attack."

"Lily and I will act as mission control in the hotel room. We're going to launch a cyber attack on the building and shake things up a little while Keith and Mr. Tanner will act as a physical distraction down on the ground. This should give you enough time to break into the building and place this," she handed me a flash drive, "on any computer in this specific room." She pointed at a highlighted room on the map.

"Then we'll be able to hack in and find out where Alex is!" Lily added.

"How will you know that TSI won't track you down?" Keith asked.

Dr. Terra gestured towards the briefcase filled with wires. "That's what all this equipment is for. You see, there's a reason we booked such a high room. We're not hooked up to the hotel's Internet, we're bouncing between several dozen wireless signals from around tue area-both secure and insecure. This equipment is a bot that will send out numerous decoy signals and dead end leads for TSI's hackers to follow."

"All that's left to do is for young get ready and fly in." Lily finished.

Mr. Tanner placed his hand on my shoulder. "Remember l. You're only using Aoba to fly in. No Spectrobes beyond that point."

I nodded. "Got it." 


	23. The REAL rescue begins

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 22

On the roof of the hotel, I was back in my redheaded form with Aoba by my side. I had on a black hoodie, black short, black socks that reached up to my thighs, completely black high tops, and a dark khaki green backpack with matching hip pack, gloves, and right thigh holster.

"So I really need to wear this?" I asked.

"YES!" Lily shouted through my earpiece. (Yeah, I even had a black headset on.) "You look _amazing."_

"And suspicious. And I feel really awkward. I never wear clothes like this."

"And that's the genius of it."

"Can we just get on with the plan?" Keith hissed.

"You don't need to whisper." Lily laughed.

Dr. Terra chimed in. "This is a private frequency, not a radio show. You can relax when speaking with us."

"Okay, then. GET ON WITH IT!" He cried.

"There's no need to make us deaf, either!" I groaned.

I took a deep breath and stepped up to the edge of the building. My heart raced. It took me a moment, but I gathered my composure and got over my fears.

I leapt. I felt that sensation of my insides floating within my body, an inch above where they normally are, but not long enough to gain too much momentum. Just before then, Aoba came and lifted me by my arms. We soared well above the tallest buildings in the city, waiting until we reached the area above TSI's new hideout to descend. We landed gently on the roof.

"There's no door." I noticed.

"We know." Lily said.

"There should be an air duct somewhere. Do you see it?" Dr. Terra asked.

"Yeah."

"Open it."

I pulled the hilt out of the thigh holster and turned it into a sword, then stood before the air duct sticking out of the roof. I made one slicing motion. The top of the duct slid off at an angle, a seamless cut separating it from its original holster.

I was about to leap inside when Mr. Tanner shouted into the mic. "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SACRED IN THIS WORLD, DO NOT JUMP IN!"

I stopped with my foot above the duct.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I cannot believe that you people did not look into this. This isn't a movie! An air duct will not support your weight."

"Really?" Lily asked.

"Yes, really. And even if they did, the metal strips they use to attach them to the roof have the screws placed on the outside! Every few feet you'll be faced with a row of pointy screws!"

"Well that idea's gone out the window." Dr. Terra scoffed.

"So now how do I get in? Please tell me you have a plan B!"

"Give me a minute!" Dr. Terra reassured me. "There should be a storage closet about five feet to the east of where the air duct is. Any chance you can get the Spectrobes to break through the roof so you can get in?"

"Won't that be a little loud?" I asked.

"Not if you cause a distraction." Dr. Terra suggested.

Lily was confused. "I thought we were going to wait to launch our cyber attack."

"We are. I'm assuming that you can use more than one Spectrobe at once, Mari."

"Yeah."

"Can you find any rocks or pebbles lying around?"

I saw where she was going.

(…)

"Yes honey. I'll get up early tomorrow just for your birthday, alright?"

"Bye, daddy!"

He sighed. This new job paid well and he had most of the day to do as he pleased, but he always had to sleep until around noon because he had to work until around sunrise! And all he did was stare at security monitors all night.

"Don't you think that they should stick one on the roof?" He asked.

"It's a skyscraper—for a company that deals in medicine. I highly doubt that someone with the resources to parachute in would care about anything TSI would have."

That's when a large bang came from one of the monitors. A window had been smashed in on the bottom floor. They immediately focused all of their monitoring resources on the area and alerted the security to close off the bottom floor. The top floors would be left relatively unsecured, but that wasn't really an issue.

(…)

Sneaking in via a balcony was a lot easier when half of the building's security was on the bottom floor. I was actually pretty relaxed considering that this was my first break-in. I called my Spectrobes back and tiptoed through the halls. According to Dr. Terra, most of the upper building's cameras were being ignored in order to provide a better view of what was going on downstairs.

I didn't tiptoe because, in all honesty, that would have been a little ridiculous. The goal of this mission was to get in and out as soon as possible. I needed to move fast and tiptoeing wouldn't allow that.

I dashed across the halls, only stopping to check every turn for someone walking through. I found the stairwell, unguarded.

Keith chimed in on the com link. "Most of the floor is clear. It doesn't look like anyone plans on leaving the rooms they're in."

"Except maybe those two guys talking to each other in the urinals," Mr. Tanner added.

"Too much information!" I hissed.

They were on the ground, with thermal binoculars provided to them by Keith's father. They looked like stargazers, but they were really providing a major area of support for me. It made me wonder who Keith's dad was. It was obvious that he knew about the Spectrobes like Keith and his uncle did, but who was he, to afford four-star hotel rooms and such expensive equipment.

"Go down four flights of stairs," Lily instructed. "Keith and Mr. Tanner will tell you if anything happens."

I did just that, then took the door into the main hall.

"Mari, pick up the pace. It looks like most of the guards are leaving the scene of the rock incident."

I jogged to the computer room. Save for the blinking lights of the columns upon columns of electronic equipment, it was completely dark and it was as cold as heck. I ignored the urge to rub my arms for warmth as I felt around to find my way. I couldn't flip the light on because that might catch someone's attention. I wound up running into something at least four times.

"The slot should be right in front of you. Try and feel around for it."

And so I did.

"Lily. You search through their systems while I launch the cyber attack!"

I heard furious typing and clicking. The machines in the room suddenly started to buzz and to beep almost twice as much as they had been just moments ago. I decided to take the chance to get into a safer room, one that guards probably frequented less. I ran out the door.

And into a worker.

"What are you doing here?" He gasped.

I froze. Time froze. It felt like time slowed as my brain went into overdrive. I had to subdue him—fast. I brought my knee into his crotch. He fell over and started to moan. I leapt over his person and started to run.

"Code red! Mayday, mayday! I've been spotted!" I hissed. The "code red" and maydays weren't real code words that we had come up with, but they felt appropriate for use in this situation.

Mr. Tanner cursed. Keith groaned.

"Get out of there!" Dr. Terra ordered.

I was in the stairwell when Lily cut in. "NO!" She cried. "I found out where Alex is!"

I stopped. "Where is he?"

"Bellow you! He's in the building! The basement!"

"How many stories down?"

"A lot."

I thought for a moment. "I'm going in."

"Don't do it!" Keith shouted. "Leave the building. We need to regroup before we do anything!"

"Someone saw me. They'll be expecting me. It's now or never."

I swung over the railing and dropped down countless flights of stairs, ready to finish this rescue.


	24. Lilly Calls It

**Ah. Back in school; where I'm starting this chapter. I'll be applying to college soon and I hope to major in architecture (and minor in creative writing ;D). **

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spectrobes. **

**Spectrobes Legends**

Chapter 23

Alex rubbed his arms; they were so sore. His mouth was dry too. That's what action heroes did on TV when they were let out of wrist bindings. If it did anything to make his raw skin less sore, then Alex needed to rub harder, because it wasn't working.

That woman's scientists had tried to run a few tests. Alex didn't want any part of it, so he had kicked and two strips of duct tape forming an "X" over his mouth. A very unpleasant experience.

Now he was back in his plain white room, praying to God that they had gotten everything they wanted and that they'd let him go soon enough.

Then the woman with the iPad came back, beaming. She ran up to Alex and cupped his face in her hands.

"You were lying!" She said. "I knew it! You had been lying the whole time!"

Alex expected her to wring his neck, but she simply let go and started typing. Apparently Alex had lied to her, but she'd gotten something good out of kidnapping him.

He gulped. "Why are you smiling?"

She flashed him an almost terrifyingly smug smile before showing him the iPad.

The red-haired girl was there.

"You led her and her monsters right to us."

_And she's going to get me out of here,_ he thought.

(…)

The different floors of the building flew by me as I plunged deep into this modern citadel. I couldn't hear everyone screaming for me to stop, to get out of there so that we could regroup, but it didn't matter. The wind in my ears drowned them out.

WHY DID I JUMP LIKE THAT?

I suddenly found myself screaming, curling up into a ball as I fell. I was no longer the flaming-haired hero that had saved an entire city from decimation; I was once again a teenage girl, scared out of her mind.

The Prismod started to glow and I suddenly stopped falling. Aoba had grabbed me with one talon and had perched itself on the edge of the stairwell with the other. He was so huge that he couldn't spread his wings without pushing against the railing and injuring himself.

I looked down.

Aoba managed to catch me about five feet from the bottom floor. I thanked him and leapt down before calling him back.

There was a heavy metal door in front of me that required a code to unlock. I could just slice through it, but there was the off chance that there would also be a built in alarm system for just such an occasion. I decided to play it safe and call Dr. Terra.

"I have the code," she began. "The bots we sent to attack their mainframe were designed to snatch any tidbits of information that we might find useful, such as passwords and certain classified information.

"Lily also added in the feature of having them send numerous digital copies out on the internet in order to throw off anyone that might try to trace us. Most of them will fizzle out, and some will make it to special blogs we started by using unmarked accounts. We can go and check the information there while still looking like normal people going to check our favorite websites. If we get some attention, then we can screw over TSI in a way, too: curious blog-goers and all."

"Cool!" I exclaimed.

She told me the code and I idly typed it in. The door slid open without a single issue.

Until the scientist on the other side saw me, that is.

He was wearing a white lab coat and looking at some papers on a clipboard. For a moment, he just walked by and didn't notice me, but at the last second he looked back and his jaw dropped. I didn't give him the chance to scream. I elbowed him in the gut and watched him keel over.

"What was that?" Keith asked.

"An issue being neutralized," I said coolly.

"You're such a badass!" Lily squealed.

"I know!" I squealed back. Yes, this was a rescue operation, but who said that I couldn't have fun with it?

The underground facility was a far cry from the rest of the building. Unlike the above, there was no carpeting, and there were sliding doors everywhere. The low lighting, men in uniforms and scientists in lab coats didn't help. It felt like I had stepped onto a sinister version of the _Starship Enterprise_.

I ran along the hallways, pressing my back against the wall whenever I came close to an intersection or a turn, making sure to carefully glance around the edge before moving along. I didn't encounter anyone else.

"Can you guys pick anything up?" I asked.

"Nothing," Lily said.

"Not getting anything suspicious on the outside either," Keith added.

"Nada h—WAIT!" My heart skipped a beat. "Something on someone called 'the boy'. He's in the facility! Two doors down from where you are!"

I ran forward. When I came to the door and it was locked I started hacking away with the sword like a maniac. When it wouldn't come down after a dozen slashes, I kicked and screamed for it to come open. There was a hallway with the lighting placed on the floor and miles of wiring hanging from the roof. I walked in.

"You Lily said.

"Tell us where you are," Dr. Terra instructed.

I described the hallway to them.

"I think you should turn around," Lily told me.

I kept on walking. "Why?"

"Is there a wide open room in front of you?"

"N—actually you're right!" The room was right at the end of the hall."

Lily sighed. "Low lighting. Metal and wiring everywhere. Feels a little trap-like, don'tcha think?"

"This isn't a movie," Keith groaned.

She still went on. "Next thing you know, there'll be a sinister voice coming on in an intercom saying 'so glad you could make it, Ms. Spectrobe Master'."

"So glad you could make it, Ms. Spectrobe Master," came a voice over an intercom.

"CALLED IT!"


	25. Findinc Alex

**I am SO sorry that I haven't updated in so long! It's been crazy with senior year. I've had a crapload of reading to do for my AP Lit class, and I decided to do Early Decision with most of my college applications, so I've been busy with essays, and to top it all off, MY COMPUTER'S BEEN INFECTED _AGAIN_ AND I LOST MY FLASH DRIVE! I managed to find it and our computer's been cleaned out, but I was pushed back for over a month! I'm going to work hard and make the updates regular again. No more three-month waits! **

**OH! And btw, if you're a _Code Geass_ fan, I'm planning a new fic called _Diary of a Madman_. I've spoken to some established writers in the _Code Geass_ fiction area, and they've given me their stamp of approval _and_ I've already finished chapter one, so I'll post it in a few weeks tops. **

**Spectrobes: Legends**

Finding Alex

The lights all suddenly came on in the room and it was almost blindingly bright. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the new lighting. The room was big and wide open. About fifteen feet in front of me and another fifteen above the ground, there was a large glass wall. A bunch of uniformed men and a Korean woman stood on the other side. It took me a moment to realize it, but I knew who she was.

"Ae-Cha Trung…!" I growled.

Lily came in on the intercom and hissed, "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

I didn't respond. I didn't want to tip that maniac of a woman off to the fact that I had some friends on the outside.

"When my sister arranged for the little music star to be brought to us," she began with a sly smile, "neither of us could have imagined that we would have gotten _this_ much out of it. A good investment, wouldn't you agree?"

I scowled at her. "Where's Alex?"

She waved at someone I couldn't see. Alex was shoved forward, his hands cuffed together. I felt my heart skip a beat. One eye was swollen shut and his arms were covered in bandages and scars. He'd been to hell and back. Ms. Trung noticed that I was taken aback and smiled. She was seriously smiling with a half-dead kid standing next to her! What the heck was wrong with these people?

"I'm assuming that all of you can hear me?"

Ae-Cha arched a brow.

"ALL OF YOU NOD YOUR HEADS IF YOU CAN HEAR ME!" As I screamed, I called out Zozane and Aoba. Almost every uniformed man in the room flinched. The rest nodded. Ae-Cha's eyes widened as Alex placed his bound hands against the glass. "You guys! The goons in the uniforms!" I shouted.

When they didn't respond, I used my link to the Spectrobes to silently will them to growl and act menacing. They flinched again.

"What in the _freaking hell_ is wrong with you? Why aren't you helping that kid in there?"

A few of them averted their gaze.

I'd had enough.

I ran forward and jabbed my sword into the wall. I yanked myself up, above it, pulled it out of the wall and jabbed it in their above my head again. I repeated the process until my weapon was inside the glass, barely poking through the other side. I stood on the foot-long hilt. Only a small radius around the blade cracked, but that was more than enough.

"You guys are _a messed up bunch of monsters_! You're seeing an _innocent kid_ go through so much trauma and pain _and you're not doing a damned thing about it_! You should be _ashamed of yourselves_! Don't you have kids? _You disgust me_!"

Alex placed his hands against the spot where I leaned against the glass. He was really happy.

"I'll get you out of there," I said. There was some kind of look in his eyes. It was joy, obviously, but a little part of me remembered that day behind the school when he'd stupidly tried to take on a bunch of Krawl with a baseball bat just so he could get close to me. Could he be mistaking this for love? My stomach started flopping as I thought about how awful it would be like to have a rich and powerful singer for a stalker/secret admirer.

Ae-Cha suddenly pressed something on her iPad. The Spectrobes started to growl and roar. I could feel their uneasiness from where I was. I looked down. A bunch of hidden doors had opened around the room. Krawl were staggering through. Krawl! How in the heck had they gotten Krawl down here? Were the Trung Sisters working with the High Krawl?

Realizing that this wasn't the time to contemplate theories, I leapt down, grabbing the sword's hilt as I fell, and jerked my body as hard as I could. The weapon came out of the glass. I brought it down on a Krawl as I fell. It was one of those raptor-like Krawl. It vanished into dust the moment I landed on the ground.

"Do you like our pets?" Ae-Cha asked. "We spent quite a bit of money getting them here."

I looked more closely at the shambling beasts. The Spectrobes seemed confused somehow. When I looked more closely at the Krawl, I realized why: the raptors were augmented with bits of machinery and technology. Some had devices that looked like _Dragon Ball Z_ scouters on their heads. Others had mechanical limbs. Some simply had patch-jobs done with wounds covered in metal and wiring. The augmentations weren't perfect; some were clearly rushed. They oozed shadow, sparked and the Krawl they "modified" staggered around and bumped into each other. Wiping them out was the easiest fight I had ever been in.

Until the machine guns popped out of the walls. And the blades appeared on the Krawls' augmentations.

Wonderful.

I crouched and covered my head, even though I secretly knew that such a position would do virtually nothing against machine gun rounds. The Spectrobes seemed to realize what was going on and immediately leapt in front of me. I shut my eyes and felt tears stream down my face. I expected to feel their blood spatter against my skin. They did cry out in pain and I did feel their pain, but not their deaths.

I opened my eyes.

They were bullet proof!

They were clearly phased by the rounds, but not severely injured. The bullets did about as much to them as a rubber bullet would do to a normal human; most of the pain but none of the lethalness!

It would have been cruel to force them to stay in that position any longer, so I focused my energy and swung the sword in a massive arc around the room. A large arc of light came out of my weapon and crashed into the machine guns. They all either exploded or were damaged so badly that they could no longer fire.

Instinctively, I knew that the Krawl and their augmentations were going to be a lot more dangerous than conventional human weaponry. I leapt out from behind my two Spectrobes and dashed towards the nearest Krawl. Before the guns had popped out, we'd already done a fair amount of damage, so taking it out only took one swing. It vanished into black dust, leaving its metallic enhancements behind.

Spikan spun around and smacked another Krawl in the face with his tail. There was a sickening crunch as the monster's internal bone structure and enhancements crumbled under the crushing blow. Zozane rammed into a row of three different Krawl. I leapt above him and brought my sword down on top of the last one.

"Hey, Ms. Trung, I beat the last—" I saw that Ae-Cha and her goons were trying to drag Alex away "darn it!"

Spikan gave me a boost again. In the air, I slashed at the small hole in the wall that I had already made. When the sword stopped I yanked it out and used the momentum to propel myself into the air enough to slash again, forming an X. Several pieces of the glass fell away. There was a hole big enough for me to squeeze through in the glass wall. I slipped in and called the Spectrobes back. They turned into small flashes of light that returned to the Prismod. Ae-Cha had still been in the doorway. When the Spectrobes came back to me, she stared at the Prismod in awe.

"How…How did it…?" Even with Alex thrashing and screaming behind her, she stepped towards me. "With that technology, we could change the world. Tell me… Tell me your secret. What is that technology? Tell me!"

"Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaa—no." I smacked her in the face with the broad end of the sword. She was immediately knocked out and fell to the ground. Taking out her goons (they were clearly just medical staff and not actual guards) took just another moment.

I smashed Alex's handcuffs. "Come on," I said. "We're getting out of here."


	26. The Escape Begins

**Ah. Its winter break again and I'm back in Florida. I've been sitting by the pool with a stack of books and my iPod at the ready. I've been reading this collectors edition Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection released by Barnes & Noble; they released a bunch of classics in these beautiful hard covers all for 20 bucks flat! Each! But I checked my email, saw the reviews, and felt compelled to get right back to work. I'm postponing a trip to the local mall to get a lunch and a new swimsuit for this, and thank you for the support!**

**Spectrobes: Legends**

A Complicated Escape

Robertson reviewed several reports on remaining Krawl within Central City. It was easy to tell that over half of them were stray animals that had taken a few overzealous locals by surprise. False leads were annoying, but at least the locals were still on edge. That meant that they wouldn't brush off strange occurrences as easily and that there was a higher chance of their department hearing about a possible good lead.

A woman walked into the room, laptop in hand. "Agent Robertson, I think you should see this."

She showed him footage of what looked like a red-haired girl with a giant bird, flying towards a tall building.

"Get the SWAT team ready," he said.

(…)

Ae-Young slammed her fist down on her desk. "They WHAT?"

Ae-Cha winced and explained, "The red-haired girl arrived and managed to find Alex. They're making their way through the underground facility and are about to breach another line of our security—"

"Stop," Ae-Young said. "You mean to say that we had the girl and her Spectrobes right where we wanted them, and you _let them escape_?" Her sister opened her mouth to say something, but she didn't allow her to continue. "You know what? Never mind. Just—just… What are your plans?"

A man—another one of their assistants—spoke up. "We can call the police. There is an arrest warrant out for the girl."

Ae-Cha ripped a pistol from a hidden fold on her skirt and fired at the man. He crumpled to the ground.

"What do I keep telling you about watching your temper, Cha-Cha? You're just too dramatic sometimes. You overreact."

Ae-Cha blushed at hearing her childhood nickname. Only her sister and her mother had ever been allowed to call her that without retaliation. "Relax, dear sister. It was a Taser bullet—the latest in non-lethal self-defense."

Ae-Young smiled. "Good. Now he'll remember to think before he speaks." They couldn't call the police because the Spectrobe Master had Alex with him, a boy with many fans, the influence that comes with them, and a real bone to pick with TSI—a _very_ dangerous combination. The Spectrobes would wind up out of their reach and the boy would completely ruin their reputation. They couldn't risk that. "Just make sure we get them alive."

(…)

I held on to Alex's hand as we ran. The fact that he could still stand and run after having been through so much really impressed me. We were making our way up through the building. Dr. Terra had explained that the police had gotten a tip about something going on at TSI and were keeping an eye on the building. Neither of us wanted to make a super-window-leap out of the building only to get arrested. We had to aim high.

"I still can't believe this is happening," Alex sighed.

I smiled at him. "The getting kidnapped part or the getting rescued again part?" 

"Both. How did you even find me?"

"TSI tried to make a move on me and my friends. We eventually connected the dots and found out that they were holding you here."

"That's good."

"That we found you?" I asked.

"No—well, yes, but I'm not talking about that. I was always afraid that you were some kind of lone hero. I kept on imagining you either as some kind of amazon that's been raised to fight alone, or a kid that had to hide a bunch of giant glowing monsters from her friends and family. Either way, I was afraid that things were pretty tough for you. Friends make everything easier."

I felt my cheeks flush. Alex wasn't the weirdo that was head-over-heals for the mysterious heroine that I'd thought of him as. He was a good person that was genuinely concerned for me.

We came up next to a few elevators. I stopped.

"Don't!" Alex exclaimed. "They put cameras in those! They'll just stop it from wherever their," he made quotations with his fingers, "'mission control' room is and lock us in."

"Maybe not. Where's the service elevator?" I asked.

"It should be the last one in the back. They used it to bring me to their underground lab."

"Is it big?"

"Yeah. A lot bigger than most elevators."

I went to the service elevator and forced the doors open. "Aoba," I shouted. The large bird appeared within the elevator shaft. There was just enough space for it to spread its wings.

"Awesome," Alex breathed.

I grabbed onto one of Aoba's talons and reached a hand out to Alex. "Don't worry. He doesn't bite. Unless you're evil."

He took my hand and I pulled him into the shaft, quickly letting go and wrapping my arm around his waist. He used both arms to hold on to me. I felt my cheeks flush as Aoba soared up the shaft. This was my first time embracing a male that I'm not related to in such a way. Occasionally, I had slow-danced with friends at school dances before, but even then, I wound up shrinking away, arching my back into an awkward position that made the dance more uncomfortable than memorable.

When we reached the top, Aoba only had to flap its wings and release a large gust of wind to get the doors open.

And have Alex torn from my grasp.

Before I realized what happened, Ae-Young—the older Trung Sister—was pressing a gun to Alex's temple, ordering me to make Aoba go away and put my hands up. And what choice did I have? I wasn't about to risk giving a maniac woman reason to blow an innocent kid's brains out!

"Hands up," she ordered.

I put my hands up, giving her a death glare. "Do you understand what you're doing?"

"Yes, yes. I heard your speech to my employees earlier."

She led us into a huge office that overlooked the entire city. Her sister was there, standing next to a very nervous TSI employee. She had Alex stand next to them, where Ae-Cha kept a gun trained on him.

"Now that that's been settled, why don't we get down to business?" Ae-Young suggested.

I ignored how sore my arms were getting and continued to glare at her.

"Where did you get that marvelous gauntlet? What does it have to do with those creatures you controlled? And what do they have to do with the Krawl?"

I remained silent.

Ae-Young sighed. "Do we really have to do this the hard way? We're both strong women. Why can't we get along?"

"Because you're a kidnapper," I grumbled.

"The government you live under has done its fare share of shady dealings, but you still follow their rules—their laws."

"Our government doesn't resort to kidnapping innocent kids!" Alex shouted.

"And what does 'the government,'" I made quotations with my fingers, "have to do with anything right now?"

"They want you—an innocent child—captured."

She had me there.

Ae-Cha continued, "And TSI can offer you protection."

I decided to play along. "What's the catch?"

"Smart girl," Ae-Young said with a smile. "Information. We just want to know a few things about the Krawl and the Spectrobes."

"You've managed to figure out quite a bit on your own," I said, mimicking the strange growl that their augmented Krawl often made.

"Those modifications were there to keep them alive," Ae-Cha said. "They seem to have a suicide mechanism that prevents their kind from being captured. Think of it as a necessary e—"

She stopped suddenly and stared out the window, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. I followed her gaze, unsure of what could startle such a cold-hearted woman.

SWAT team members with FBI written on their helmets and on their bullet-proof vests were scaling the building and were right outside the window. They broke through, their machine guns raised and aimed at us.

"Hands in the air!"


	27. Mysterious Underground Movement

**Ah, applications are all done. Finals are all done. Now I just have to wait for an acceptance letter. Oh wait—I got accepted to one of my top choice colleges while I was writing this!**

**Spectrobes: Legends**

Mysterious Underground Movement

Alex threw his arms into the air with an almost deranged-looking combination smile/frown on his face. Clearly, he wasn't sure whether he should be celebrating or crying. The Trung sisters, on the other hand, were using every ounce of their self restraint to keep from either screaming at the top of their lungs or jumping the SWAT team members.

One SWAT team member that wasn't pointing a gun at us stepped towards Alex and took him by the arm. "HQ, Delta Squad has located the Child of Interest. Target Redhead is with him." He looked Alex over and held up his arm. "Scars around the arms. Bruising on the face. One eye swollen shut. Who did this?"

He didn't hesitate to use his free arm to point at the Trung sisters.

"Why you little f—" the younger sister was about to say something very nasty, but her older sister cut her off.

"What else should we expect when the boy has somehow gotten a second set of rescuers?" She didn't resist as the SWAT team members cuffed her hands behind her back and did the same to her sister. "But the both of you should be warned," she began. "This isn't over, not—"

"I swear if you say 'not by a long shot,' I'm going to smack you upside of the head with the broad side of my sword."

One of the SWAT team members chuckled. When his superior glanced at him, he went rigid and tried to look like he hadn't uttered a sound since crashing in.

"HQ, we need evac on a hostage and three prisoners."

When the high-ranking officer said three, another SWAT team member stepped towards me with a pair of handcuffs at the ready. I felt my heart plummet into my gut. Before he got a step closer, I darted to the side and ran towards the window.

"She's making a break for it!" One shouted.

"Stop her!" A woman with a muffled voice commanded.

"Wait, kid! It never looks good when you run!"

_Yeah, well I'd prefer looking bad to some government laboratory any day! _I thought.

Someone shot at me, but it ended with a large _THUD_ and someone screaming, "We need her alive!"

I was already flying out the window when they caught up to me. As I plummeted to the ground, I noticed the countless police cars with their lights flashing on the ground, the barricade they'd formed, and the massive crowd that had formed outside of the TSI building. There was a sudden wave of screaming.

I was maybe ten or fifteen feet away from splattering against the pavement when I called out Aoba. I landed on its back and we tore through the crowd. People dove out of the way as we flew and darted between buildings. There were screams and cheers, as well as the roaring of police officers on megaphones telling everyone to remain calm. When Aoba and I had put a large amount of distance between us and the TSI building, I let go and landed in an alleyway. I reverted back to my normal self, tore off my stockings and my hoodie, pulled on a white blouse, and had Aoba continue to fly off. After I was a ways away, but still not too close to the hotel, I called Aoba back.

(…)

When I arrived in the room, Lily and Keith rammed into me, looking me over and asking me questions.

"Why did you disconnect?" Keith demanded.

"There are police everywhere! You're on the news!" Lily squealed. A sudden look of shock came over her face. "What about Alex?"

I smiled. "He's OK. I'm pretty sure that the SWAT team that came for us is going to get him back home."

They pulled me into the room. Dr. Terra handed me a candy bar and a bottle of water. It was only when the first bite of chocolate went down my throat that I realized how hungry I really was. Between bites, I filled them in on what happened and why I had to cut off the conversation.

"I see," Mr. Tanner sighed. "You were afraid that they might trace the signal. Good thinking."

Lily called to us from the living area. "Guys, come here! Check out the news."

CNN was playing HD footage of my escape on loop. It had been taken from a building across the street from TSI's facility. You could hear the people that were recording it gasp as I fell. They cheered when I got away on Aoba. The footage froze and vanished as the feed switched to a woman at the scene of the incident.

"Yes, it is true! The girl and a Spectrobe have been independently confirmed to have leapt out of the new Trung Sisters Incorporated building. Attention first came to the building when bloggers in the city posted about the FBI SWAT teams breaking into the building. Authorities still refuse to comment, but witnesses have posted footage of the Trung Sisters being arrested and an unidentified youth being taken to safety. No word yet on who this youth is."

I collapsed onto the couch and breathed a sigh of relief. "He's OK," I breathed.

"Now then," Dr. Terra said, "the question is how the world will react to seeing you run."

The next hour was spent pouring over major blogs, chat rooms, and the more popular videos of my escape. There were some that were calling me a criminal, saying that I was working with the Krawl, but the typos showed that they were either from people not completely informed on the situation or internet trolls hoping to get a rise out of the people who would defend me.

There were a lot of people defending me.

(…)

He gazed at the screen as it was filled with his followers' responses.

No. 'Followers' wasn't the right word. Their movement had no true leader—no potential for someone in such a position to abuse such power. He simply tried act as a shepherd, a guide, that directed the unstoppable flow of kindred spirits in the direction of righteous freedom.

He barely had a second to run through the latest responses before they were pushed off of the screen by more incoming responses. He pressed a few buttons and it caused another window to open. Responses were organized based on the keywords he chose and appeared on the new window, meaning that they had been prioritized based on comment content. Some suggested a flash mob in front of the White House—a protest demanding a lift of the arrest warrant.

He sighed.

This wasn't the president's department. Despite how much he loathed how America's bureaucracy liked to sit on their butts sipping expensive coffee while the world rotted, he understood that there was nothing the Commander-in-Chief could do. Legally.

And that's where they came in.

He had his computer send out a series of automated messages explaining how, unless they had getting a new law passed in mind, there wasn't much that the lawmaking body of America could do, that they needed a different approach. Still, when it came to getting attention, the usual methods worked.

He rolled his chair away from the computer, set up a web cam, and pulled a green screen down behind him. He slipped on the Harlequin Mask, a mask that was completely devoid of features aside from three curves that formed a face: two small "U" shapes that pointed downwards, forming the eyes, and an elegant smile for the mouth. He put on a black jacket, hid his hair under a tight black ski cap, and slipped on the mask.

"It has come to Underground's attention that the government wishes to arrest a hero for having saved countless lives." As he spoke, his computer automatically disguised his voice using his own unique filter placed on top of several filters easily downloaded from the internet. It would take quite a few audio-technology experts to figure out what he actually sounded like, but he still changed his voice to an unnaturally high-pitched tone as he spoke for good measure. "So now we must take matters into our own hands if we are to stop this tyranny from continuing, since our leaders refuse to. We will defend the righteous."


End file.
